


Gold Star, Gold Cross

by artisturtle



Series: Gold Star, Gold Cross [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Character Death, Depression, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of PTSD, Minor Rachel Berry/Finn Hudson, Minor Santana Lopez/Brittany S. Pierce, Protective Noah Puckerman, Protective Sam Evans, Protective Santana Lopez, Quinn Fabray & Santana Lopez Friendship, Suicide Attempt, Trigger Warnings, Unholy Trinity Friendship, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-02-25 00:42:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 31
Words: 87,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22327129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artisturtle/pseuds/artisturtle
Summary: Rachel has always been the girl who had matches in her fists and fire in her heart.Quinn has always been the girl who had worn the apocalypse like a second skin.It's always been them: Quinn and Rachel, Rachel and Quinn. They're not supposed to mix together at school, but they seamlessly weave in each other's lives. Quinn is Quinn, and Rachel is Rachel.Quinn Fabray wakes up to an all too-white, too-bright room but her world is in the dark. There's a large split on her skull, but she has no idea how she got it. She keeps forgetting, she keeps jumping back and forth from hazy dreams and even more muddled memories.So she asks. No one tells her anything and everyone tells her everything.Quinn is Quinn, and Rachel is Rachel. They're not supposed to be friends, and maybe they aren't. They are more than nothing, more than anything and more than everything.
Relationships: Quinn Fabray/Santana Lopez/Brittany S. Pierce, Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray, Sam Evans/Quinn Fabray, Santana Lopez/Brittany S. Pierce
Series: Gold Star, Gold Cross [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1943608
Comments: 109
Kudos: 97





	1. After

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing, except for this one heck of a plot that is too close to my heart. This story has been with me for four-five-ish years, I only had the guts to post this now. Please take time to read, ponder and enjoy. 
> 
> Also, tags may change over time and triggers may ensue. This story is set AU. Unbeta-ed, so all mistakes are mine. I don't really speak English as a first language, so I might have mistakes along the way. Please leave a comment and tell me what you think!
> 
> UPDATE (01-29-2020):  
> For the information of everyone, this story will be updated EVERY TUESDAY (GMT+8) in order to establish a sense of regularity. Thank you.

She wakes up to the sounds of beeping over her head. Her nostrils twitch at the smell of Chlorox and antiseptic, although the unpleasant hospital smell is underlain with the smell of gardenias. She notices the dark-haired girl lying on the side of her bed, and she calls her name to wake her friend up.

“Santana,” she croaks out softly, and she finds it astonishing how scratchy her voice sounds. Her lips feel like cotton, her mouth tastes like sand and her throat feels like it’s on fire.

Santana opens her eyes and blinks tiredly -- once, and then twice before jumping to her feet when their eyes meet and Santana registers that she’s awake. Santana acts as if the bed is on fire and that she couldn’t believe her eyes that Quinn Fabray’s eyes are wide open.

“Quinn,” Santana lets out a shaky breath as she calls her name, large beads of tears forming in her eyes and freely flowing out of them. Her grip on Quinn’s hand is gentle, but it’s firm and warm and familiar. Quinn relishes on the feel of her friend’s warmth.

“Oh God, Quinn. You’re awake...” Santana chokes out repeatedly, and Quinn furrows her brow.

Quinn had wanted to know why it’s such a big deal to Santana that she’s awake, but her physiological needs trump all other questions in her head. “Water…” she says pleadingly. “I’m thirsty,” she tells Santana and the girl jumps to her feet.

A glass of water is quickly offered to her, and Quinn greedily drinks it. To her, it feels like the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. She lets the cool liquid dampen her lips, and her mouth doesn’t feel as sandy as before. She had never tasted water that sweet. Santana raises a brow as if trying to ask her if she wanted more, but she shakes her head slowly and tells the dark-haired girl a soft thanks.

Once her need had been taken care of, Santana is already on her phone, wildly dialing someone. There’s some speaking, and then Santana rapid-fires questions at whoever who’s on the other line. “Britt, where are you? Where are you? Baby, you need to come up here real quick because this is very important,” she says and holds her breath for a short moment before letting it through her nose. 

“Quinn’s awake.”

Two minutes later, a blonde girl strides into the room, hair windswept and eyes anxious. When she sees Quinn awake, she cries and just cries on Santana’s shoulders. Santana makes calls to a lot of people, and Quinn starts to wonder why it’s such a big deal she’s awake, why she’s in a hospital, why she couldn’t remember anything before.

Santana talks to people: her mother, her grandparents, Santana’s parents, the Puckermans, Brittany’s parents, Kurt, Mr. Schuester and his wife, the Changs and the Cohens, the Jones family, Susan Sylvester, and even Rashid Figgins -- a lot of people who are familiar to Quinn. When Santana calls the Berry family, Quinn remembers about Rachel.

“Where’s Rachel?” she asks -- no, more like cough out the question in the air.

Santana and Brittany stare at each other for a split-second, and Santana drops the hand holding her phone to her ear. “Rachel’s in Pasadena. Didn’t she tell you that? You must have forgotten it. Some sort of internship thing in the observatory for the summer? For college applications?”

Quinn doesn’t remember. She nods her head though as if she remembers it. “Did she? You’re right, I must have forgotten,” she says. Rachel must have gone to that space observatory she wouldn’t shut up about, she’d always wanted to go there. Santana lets out a long-held breath. “How long was I out?”

“Two weeks,” it’s Brittany that answers for her, waving two fingers right in front of her face. The blonde girl perches herself next to her on the bed, and her fair hand makes small circular patterns at the curve of Quinn’s shoulders. 

“You shouldn’t leave like that again, Quinn. You scared us all,” Brittany tells her in a matter-of-factly tone, and Quinn’s heart lodges itself on her throat.

Quinn wonders how on earth she managed to be asleep for two weeks. She wondered what scared all of them, perhaps something terrible happened, something that caused her to end up in a hospital room.  
She tries to mull things over, until her head aches and she falls asleep.

When she wakes up again, Santana and Brittany are gone. Her mother sits beside the bed, holding her hand while a nurse is talking at the foot of her bed. The older Fabray smiles at her when she opens her eyes, her very own gray-green eyes wet with tears and she presses the hand she’s been holding to her lips. She decides to close her eyes again and just listen to the conversation.

She had surmised then, that people are being treated for smoke inhalation, alcohol intoxication, and burns. People have suffered bad burns. There are at least two students from McKinley High who broke their bones and many who had broken fingers. At least, that’s what the nurse tells Judy. Then, she proceeds to tell Judy that what happened was an accident and Quinn is lucky that she’s now awake and nothing seems to be severe with her injuries. Then, the nurse leaves after reassuring that while Quinn seems to be alright on the outside, she’s still going to be subject to confirmatory tests.

“Hey Quinnie, welcome back,” Judy Fabray sobs wetly on the back of Quinn’s palm.

“Hey,” Quinn whispers. “Hey Mom, it’s okay. Where are San and Britt?”

Judy looks up to her slowly, smiling through her tears. Quinn thinks she’s never seen her mother this tired, but she also thinks she’s never seen her mother this happy. “They’ve volunteered to buy us breakfast. I was told you’re not allowed for solid foods yet.”

When Santana and Brittany arrive back with the food, they share it. The three women sit around the round table just a few feet across the room while Quinn eats the hospital food on her food tray. Breakfast remains to be a quiet affair, and Santana volunteered to clear up once they’re done.

Judy would have none of it, but Santana shuts her mother up. “You’re heading to work, Judy. Let us do it for you. Besides, I have nowhere else to go.”

Still, Judy never backs down from a fight. Quinn watches in slight amusement as Judy tries to pry off whatever Santana is holding. Finally, after some meddling from Brittany, Santana relents and tells Judy she can go and drive Brittany to the dance studio for her dance lessons.

At this, Judy Fabray beams.

After Judy and Brittany leave for the dance studio, Santana hooks up the hospital TV into her game controller. Then, she hands Quinn another game controller, one she recognizes belonging to Sam Evans. She questioningly looks up to the Latina, but she says nothing and instead takes the controller from her friend’s hands and they start to play: she on the hospital bed, and Santana on the seat next to her.

They’re twenty minutes into the game when she decides to talk to Santana about it. Her head has been pulsing with every gunshot coming from the TV because Santana is an asshole who plays her game at full volume and doesn’t care.

She pauses the game just as the next round is loading and she asks her friend how she ended up in the hospital.

Santana stares at her, dark-brown eyes searching her hazel ones. “You were in an accident, Quinn,” she tells her and she resumes the game. “You got shit-drunk and you’re lucky you didn’t drown in your puke. And then your ass got into an accident.”

"What kind of accident?"

Santana shrugs. "You hit your head. It split open. But Papa stitched you up real good."

Quinn knows Santana is lying. They’ve been friends long enough to pick up emotions through body language. Santana’s fingers twitch horribly over the controls, and the vein on her neck strains as she tenses her shoulders.

Quinn doesn’t comment on it, though. Her head pounds again, and her fingers automatically reach up to the throbbing pain at the base of her skull and she finds the thin, hairless portion there that runs at least three inches up. Her fingertips trace the bumpy scars of sutures and the length where her skull practically split open.

No one has told her how it happened yet.

She’s still nauseous, and her head swims when she moves her head too quickly, but the pain she feels is in a deeper part of her head. It burns her eyes when she stares at the phone by her bedside table and she keeps staring at it. She knows there are at least twenty-something messages in her inbox, but not one of them is from Rachel.

“Stop being a dumbass and grab the controller,” Santana almost wails beside her and she relents, picking up Sam’s controller and resuming the game.

A nurse comes in before the game could start, so Santana pauses it and she just kind of hovers by the side of the bed while the nurse checks her charts before asking Quinn some questions regarding what she generally feels.

“Doctor’s going to come and check you again soon,” the nurse tells Quinn as she fluffs the pillows. “Will you be all right?”

Quinn sighs. “Did Rachel come here?” she asks the nurse, although the question is freely addressed to both Santana and the nurse, and she could hear Santana suck in a breath.

The nurse looks momentarily taken aback, but she regains her cool demeanor and smiles at Quinn. “You just worry about yourself for now, okay?”

Quinn doesn’t say anything more. The nurse checks out the IV drip before finally moving and closing the door behind her. Santana picks up the game controller and gives one back to Quinn. She resumes the game and the game sounds fill the room once more. They play for some more time, but there are always questions hanging at the tip of Quinn’s tongue.

“Was Rachel here?” she finally asks out of the blue. They’re in the middle of shooting off zombies and trying to make it through the forest and into the safe house. Quinn’s character is low on health and supplies. She tries to hide behind a rock while Santana keeps on shooting at the zombies coming at them.

“Who else was here, San?” she asks. She momentarily forgets about the game, and when she looks at the TV again, her character is already full of bullet holes and she’s dead.

Santana lets out a curse not long after when her avatar gets bullet holes and makes a run for a clearing. “Fuck you, Fabray. You just made me lose this game,” she says almost glumly as she resigns her avatar’s fate into oblivion. “And no, I have no idea who the fuck is here. I already told you, Quinn. Rachel’s in Pasadena.”

“You were there, San.”

Santana sighs as her character dies. “Quinn, stop talking.”

A jingle plays and the game is over. Quinn stares into nothing and Santana takes a cigarette from her pocket, but she doesn’t light it. She just twirls it around her fingertips before putting it between her lips and she starts to tinker around with her phone to check her messages. The game jingle keeps on playing. The game is over, the world is ending, and they’re all dead.

“Apocalypse,” Quinn whispers.

“What?” Santana looks up from her phone.

Quinn shakes her head. “Nothing,” she has no idea what’s going on with her. She has no idea why she’s saying these things, why these things are coming out of her mouth. So, she tells Santana they’re nothing. Her mouth tastes like vodka and vomit, but she doesn’t remember drinking.

“Shit Quinn, you look like Thor's whacked you with his hammer,” Santana peers at her, but her eyes are bleary and she doesn’t see much. She watches as a look of worry etches across her Latina friend’s face. Santana swallows hard. “Get some rest, Quinn. You look like you’re going to be sicker than you already are.”

Maybe she’s listening to Santana because her eyes are closed even if she doesn’t remember closing them. Nurses come and go, there are doctors and her mother and people peering at her and there's Santana and Brittany and there are cops around her. Maybe she’s opened her eyes, but she doesn’t really remember doing it either.


	2. Before

The night is cold and the air is freezing, her breaths are coming out in white puffs of air out of her mouth. The woodland is quiet, and there’s no light except for the moon above her and the lone streetlamp that lights the end of the Barnes Bridge. She hears the rush of the river raging below, and she could feel the chill in the autumn air. The smell of pine is strong, and it toys with her nostrils.

Quinn Fabray peers over the bridge. There’s nothing but the darkness and the gurgling sound of the river below her. She steps on the ledge, letting her legs dangle a hundred feet above the rushing river. She stares in the darkness, stares, and stares at it until she could make out the white foams where the icy river hits the rocks.

She closes her eyes and she thinks of jumping.

“It’s a cold night out, and you can barely see anything,” a voice from behind startles her. It catches her in surprise that she teeters slightly off the edge. She wobbles a bit, and she catches the ledge. She lets out a curse at her reflexes when she realizes that her hands didn’t allow her to die just yet and pain shoots up from her fingertips to her elbows.

“Rachel?” her voice raises a notch higher as she recognizes the girl in the knitted, maroon sweater with a white outline of a deer embroidered on its front. “What are you doing here?” she mutters at the girl standing not a few feet from her perch on the ledge.

“But you weren’t here for the view, right?” Rachel jogs the remaining distance towards her. “What are you doing here, Quinn? Too much coffee and couldn't sleep?”

Quinn studies the girl in front of her. She could either tell Rachel the truth or she could tell her a lie. She opts for the latter and trains her eyes on the girl's animal sweater. She nods slightly, smiling at Rachel without meeting the brunette's chocolate-brown eyes and hoping that Rachel wouldn't notice her looking away from her. 

“Yeah,” she says after a beat. “Too much coffee.”

Rachel just smiles and tucks her hands into her pockets. Quinn stares at the girl as she leans on the ledge, much too close for Quinn’s liking. “So, Rachel...” she drawls it slowly. “What exactly are you doing here at this hour?”

Rachel looks at her. “You know why, Quinn,” she answers cryptically, but then she smiles and shakes her head as if what she just said was nonsense. “Nothing. Just that I could not sleep.”

Quinn quirks a brow. They’re dangerously alike and she doesn’t want to know if she wants to go into that territory, but before she could say anything, Rachel is looking at her like she’s gazing into her soul and she tries hard to look away, fearing that Rachel might find her lies in her eyes.

“It’s my thoughts that keep me awake, Quinn.”

Quinn certainly doesn’t want to have a conversation with Rachel Berry at the moment -- especially about thoughts keeping her awake. There’s no need to upturn rocks and see maggots underneath it, no need for digging graves and finding secrets out. She turns, plants her foot on the bridge, and starts to walk.

“You know what, it’s late...” she says, trying to make herself sound more sure than she is. “I should head home, my Mom might be awake and she’ll look for me. Throw a fit when she couldn’t find me in my bedroom.”

“Quinn, wait.”

She stops on her tracks when she hears the desperation in Rachel’s voice. Her hands immediately find their way into her pockets. She doesn’t turn around, trying to ignore Rachel's gaze on her back. She doesn’t want to see the desperation in Rachel’s face. She doesn’t need it tonight of all nights. “What?” she says without turning.

She hears Rachel sigh and she makes the mistake of turning towards the brunette. “On Monday,” Rachel says, breaths coming out in white puffs. “Why don’t you take a risk?” she asks. 

Her voice sounds so little, so sad and so, so broken. It breaks her as well, but Quinn just shakes her head. Rachel nods with understanding written all over her big, brown eyes. She doesn’t say anything at all and she knows Rachel understands -- she feels that Rachel understands.

“Yeah, I thought so. It’s okay, Quinn. People don’t need to know about this,” it’s the last thing she hears from Rachel as she power-walks down the street. She doesn’t try to look back and see what Rachel has done, or if Rachel is walking after her or chasing her down the street. She doesn’t want to think.

Her thoughts are too much for her right now and she can’t have Rachel adding up to it.

Monday comes by sooner than she had thought it would. She’s woken up from her sleep with her mother’s incessant yelling behind the door. Her body lets out a groan in protest as she lifts herself off from the bed. Waking up just seems so hard to do at the moment, covering her eyes from the harsh beams of sunlight filtering through the blinds.

She sleepily weaves her way through school, and by the time she fully opens her eyes, she’s already standing in front of Mr. Roth’s English class. Her fat teacher with a pot for a belly seems to be in a wheezing roll that morning, particularly glaring at her as she makes her way to her seat.

“Glad to see…you could join us this…fine morning, Miss…Fabray,” he bark-wheezes from his perch at the front of the room.

Quinn finds it hard not to glare at him, so she focuses on the way how her shoes out-step each other as she continues down the aisle and tries to keep her head down. She drops herself unceremoniously next to Mike Chang, and the boy just grins at her. She feels obligated to smile back at him, but she gives him a small smile anyway.

Mr. Roth drones on the lesson and Quinn finds it hard not to fall asleep. He keeps talking about stuff she barely remembers the lecture within the next five minutes, and she realizes that she’s been looking at Rachel for the better part of the period.

The brunette just gives her a glance and a look that makes her heart skips a beat, knowing that both of them have been keeping a secret with each other. Finn Hudson slings his arm over Rachel’s shoulder, oblivious to the exchange between the two of them. Quinn suddenly finds the idea of them keeping secrets from everyone else incorrigible, laughable, weird, and somewhat sensible.

“...you will be working on your creative journals…together... each of you must pair up...with someone else to help you…with it...I will consider this...as your project together...in order...to develop...a sense of helpfulness...among...each of you...You will do...critiques and…peer reviews with each other...” Mr. Roth wheezes out, and as soon as he’s finished, Rachel’s hand shoots up.

“Can we choose partners, Mr. Roth?”

Mr. Roth stares at the brunette, and he simply nods his head. “Uh...well, yes.”

“Then I choose Quinn Fabray,” she says with a satisfied smirk dancing on her lips. Finn Hudson does a double-take, wearing that perpetual constipated ‘what-the-fuck’ look on his face, but he lets it slide when Mike Chang volunteers to be his partner in the project. He removes his big arms from Rachel’s shoulders and goes on to chat with the other football player.

“You...may work that…arrangement...out...with her...” Mr. Roth wheezes like an asthmatic tractor.

Quinn feels the heat rise on her cheeks, and she raises her hand. “Excuse me, sir. I don’t want to pair up with Rachel Berry,” she says. “I can...I was thinking if I could do something else, maybe write a journal on my or...something.”

“I’m sorry...Miss Fabray, but...I’m afraid...I said...partners...” Mr. Roth looks around the room. His look flits from Rachel to Quinn and back to Rachel. “Well...I am sure...that you...and Miss...Berry...will work it out...” Mr. Roth says. 

He turns to the class, disregarding the sputtering of protests coming out of Quinn’s mouth. “You will hand me your outputs...at the end of the second term for this school year...the journals will...count...thirty-five percent of your...final...grade… for this term and…thirty percent of it...will come from my assessment...and the…remaining five percent of your grade...will come from your...partner’s peer reviews...”

The latter half of Mr. Roth’s instructions fall on deaf ears as the students scrammed for their partners. Quinn sits back, watches as Santana Lopez snarls at Artie Abrams for even going near Brittany Pierce. She smiles at bit at this; at least her friends are getting their desired partners.

“Hi, do you mind if I sit next to you?” Rachel brightly pops behind her, and she almost jerks back in her surprise. She scowls at the brunette, who’s smartly dressed in her plaid skirt and her argyle vest and a cotton sweatshirt underneath. She looks bright, happy, and fun. There’s an underlying current of sadness present in her eyes, but Quinn chooses not to comment on it.

“Yeah,” she shrugs to the chair that Mike Chang has just recently vacated and nods at Rachel. The girl beams at her like she had just hung the moon in the sky. She really doesn’t want to pair up with Rachel, especially after that incident on the bridge last Saturday night.

“So...Quinn,” Rachel says airily. “What do you want to do with our project?”

Quinn looks at Rachel disbelievingly. “I don’t know, Rachel. It was you who volunteered me into this, so you better do something to make this work,” she snaps angrily at the brunette. Rachel looks mildly chastised like she knows that Quinn is pissed.

“Alright,” the smile is back on Rachel’s face as she hugs that annoyingly colorful binder notebook that Quinn has grown an uncanny aversion with for the past five minutes. Quinn thinks the girl has gone deranged or worse. “I’ll see you outside of class, Quinn. Won’t be a problem,” her lips quirk in a dorky, sideways smile and she skips outside the door as soon as the bell rings.


	3. After

There’s nothing special about Lima, Ohio. It’s just a small town in the middle of nowhere. No one ever stays, and everyone wants to leave it behind once they get the first chance to do so. There’s snow in Lima and there are potatoes when it’s not snowing.

Lima is known for one of the biggest limestone quarries in the Midwest.

Lima is known for having a nationally-ranked cheerleading team, where Quinn’s a part of -- or used to be a part of, depending on who’s speaking.

Lima is known for the McKinley Titans, one of the state-recognized football teams. Not entirely good, but good enough.

Lima is known for a more-than-average glee club from McKinley High.

Lima is known for Rachel Berry.

They take turns in telling her those things: Judy, Santana, Brittany, the nurses, the doctor and almost everyone else. Even Sam Evans tries to tell her about Lima and about things when he visits her for a few minutes between his shifts at the local cineplex.

It doesn’t matter to Quinn, though. Her brain is addled. Their words touch the tendrils of her brain and it sends ripples in her thoughts, but she always comes up blank. She always forgets, except for a few things they have kept on repeating:

There was a party at Karofsky’s house.

There was a fire that got out of control.

A large chunk of Karofsky’s house burned down.

They found her by the quarry mudhole, her skull split open and she’s almost bleeding to death.

Rachel's there at the party. She’s there at the party. But, when the house burned down, Rachel wasn’t one of those who got landed into the hospital. They don’t tell her where Rachel is, or where she had been that night.

Maybe they are telling her and she just kept forgetting. Maybe they aren’t.

She sleeps a lot. When she wakes up, she usually finds Santana seated at the seat beside her bed. Sometimes, it’s Brittany or Judy, but mostly, it’s Santana sitting there. Today is no different. It’s been eight days since she had actually woken up and the pain in her head is nothing but a faint pulsing now. She can also now eat solid food. 

She can also hobble her way around the room, of course, with someone’s help. Santana usually holds her up while she makes for the bathroom. For an asshole friend, Santana has suddenly become so dependable. Santana is still definitely an asshole because she still plays the annoying video game with the volume turned up, but Quinn has learned to tune it out.

“San, what happened? To Rachel and everyone, I mean,” she suddenly brings it up while they’re seated on another round of Last Shelter: XVI. Santana’s hand stills over the controller, and her avatar gets run over by a zombie truck.

“Fuck,” Santana groans. “Sorry, what?”

“I said…what happ-”

“I heard you the first time, Fabray,” Santana says and she pauses the game. “You asked what happened. You never ask me that.”

Quinn just stares at the ceiling. It’s immaculate-white, perfectly smooth and so much more interesting than Santana’s stupid video game. The annoying game jingle is up again, and she knows Santana has resumed playing the game.

“So just answer the goddamn question, San.”

Santana sighs and pauses the game again. She looks at Quinn, really looks at her for the first time and the girl’s dark eyes are regarding her cautiously. Quinn thinks that maybe, for once, Santana will tell her the truth this time. She doesn’t shrivel under Santana’s intense stare, and it’s the Latina who finally lets out a long, low sigh.

“Rachel’s in Pasadena, Quinn. How many times do I have to repeat that?”

Quinn looks at the telltale sign of Santana’s lie -- the jittery nerves, the fingers that couldn’t stay still, the eyes that never make eye contact and for once she doesn't find any of these signs. For a moment, Quinn thinks that maybe Santana’s learned the art of not being caught in a lie, then, she thinks that maybe, just maybe, Santana’s telling the truth. A pain blossoms at the back of her neck, and it crawls up to where her sutures are.

“If…if she’s in Pasadena, why…why isn’t she calling to tell me?” she asks out hollowly at Santana, the pain is growing larger and larger with every breath she takes.

Santana looks at her again, and Santana’s eyes look black. Quinn shakes her head slowly because she’s sure that Santana’s eyes are brown just like Rachel’s own eyes. The shaking is only intensifying the pain, and Quinn winces.

The world tilts sideways, and Quinn could feel Santana shifting from her seat. Her vision blurs, and she sees Santana’s face with Rachel’s eyes peering over her with concern written all over her face. Then, Santana’s face disappears.

Her doctor comes by a few days later and she asks Quinn if she’s ready to go. She doesn’t get so much tilting around her vision now, but then again, her world only tilts when they talk about Rachel and her absence, and no one talks to her about Rachel lately.

“Where?” Quinn dumbly asks the doctor.

The woman clad in white grins at Quinn. Quinn knows it’s fake and it’s forced but Quinn doesn’t tell her. “Home, Quinn. You're going home,” she says, forcing out a jolly tone. “You get to go home tomorrow.”

“Oh,” is all Quinn could say. The doctor hums as she checks the charts at the foot of Quinn’s bed and she makes small talk by asking Quinn how she’s been doing that morning.

Quinn by now has a way of lying through her teeth. She tells them that she’s fine, even when her heart still feels heavy. Her throat still feels tight and constricted, but maybe it’s just because of the questions that lay lodged there. The doctor turns to Quinn and tells her she’s doing fine.

“She always says that all the time,” Santana mutters as the doctor leaves the room. "That you'll go home and that you're doing fine."

“Oh,” Quinn says. She has no idea. “She does? I don’t remember how many times she’s been here.”

Santana just shrugs. If she worries about Quinn, she’s not showing it. Then again, Santana Lopez is better and better at hiding and keeping secrets from Quinn ever since the blonde has woken up -- Santana is doing it so much better than Quinn Fabray could read the signs of her lies. Quinn just watches as Santana picks up the game controller and starts to play again.

The next day, Santana actually packs up the game controls and the Xbox. Sam Evans comes over and packs up their things as well and helps them lug the big suitcase around the halls and into his waiting truck. Brittany brings her a nice, yellow sundress and she changes into it. Judy couldn’t help but shed joyful tears at the sight of her.

Sam drives them to the Fabray home. It’s a sprawling house along Adamson Road, with white picket fences and lush-green front yards. Quinn notices that there are at least twelve cars piled around the driveway. When they step inside the house, it feels homey, like it’s been lived in. There are no longer pictures of her father hanging from the wall. The imposing figure of Jesus Christ on the living room is also removed.

There’s a large banner that reads ‘WELCOME HOME QUINN’ hanging from the gutters by the front facade of the house. Mrs. Pierce made Quinn some delectable ice cream cake, and Mrs. Lopez makes them enchiladas. Miss Sylvester brings and old-town chicken casserole, much to everyone’s surprise -- Mr. Schuester’s most especially. Miss Pillsbury comes through the door, carrying a basket of fruits covered in Reynold’s wrap. Mercedes Jones brings the baked muffins and cookies Mrs. Jones made and apologized that her parents couldn't come. Mrs. Hummel comes with Kurt and brought some aged wine and smoked steak. The Changs brought pasta and Chong Wok noodles.

Everyone that has known Quinn comes to her house to welcome her home. Everyone’s brought something to share and they eat the potluck dinner in the Fabray’s large dining room. It has been a good evening, and Quinn starts to enjoy herself.

Of course, except for the fact that Rachel isn’t there.

Later that night, the cops arrive. There are two of them, and they knock on the door just as everyone is clearing up and most of the adults have left. They introduce their names and they do it just once. Quinn couldn’t exactly remember their names so she settles for their physical identifiers -- one of them has a mop of auburn hair and is actually cute while the other is fat and stern-looking with a few gray hairs behind his ear.

She starts calling them Cute Cop and Fat Cop.

Judy glares at the cops, but she lets them in anyway and she takes them to the den. Neither Santana nor Brittany offers the cops a seat, and there’s only one seat available for the cops to sit on, so one of them has to stand. As if like clockwork, Cute Cop remains standing by the mantle and he pulls out a notepad. Fat Cop takes a seat at one of the chairs.

Quinn watches as Santana glares daggers at the cops as she asks them what the hell they’re doing in the Fabray’s house. She watches as Santana’s fingers twitch for a cigarette, but then Brittany’s milky hands wrap around Santana’s twitching ones and they still themselves on the couch hand-rest.

“We’ve talked to everyone in the fire,” Fat Cop says, not really looking at Santana. “It’s just standard procedure, nothing to worry about.”  
“Her brain’s fu-- I mean, her brain is messed up,” Santana counters bravely. Now, Fat Cop actually looks at Santana. “You can’t actually ask for a statement when she’s like that, she’s even having a hard time remembering where the hell she is right now.”

“Miss Lopez,” Fat Cop’s voice takes on a dangerous and low tone. “The doctors have cleared her. It’s just standard procedure for all of us to take into account all the witnesses during the fire,” his voice is firm and stern and Quinn silently wonders if Santana’s going to get into trouble for riling it up with the cops.

Santana’s about to open her mouth again, but Quinn beats her to it. “San, just…just take a breather.”

“Excuse me?” Santana glares. “You don’t know half of the things you’re saying, Tubbers.”

The jibe falls on deaf ears and Quinn just shakes her head. “Just…go out for a while, San. I know what I’m saying,” she tells the Latina slowly, so that she could convey to Santana that she exactly knows what she is saying. 

After a few terse seconds of glaring between the two of them, Santana concedes and she gets up from her spot on the couch. Brittany leaves the room with Santana. Quinn sighs, and Cute Cop takes a seat at the empty space left by Santana. Fat Cop clears his throat and he starts to ask questions about the night of the fire.

They keep asking her questions: what she knows about the quarry, why she’s in the quarry so often, if she always went with Rachel to the quarry, how were things with Rachel, did Rachel ever cry, was Rachel ever sad, how well she knows Rachel.

Quinn nods. “Better than anyone,” she tells them.

“Is that right, kid?” Fat Cop asks. “Because we’ve talked to almost everyone in McKinley and no one tells me that you and Rachel are close. You don’t talk to each other at school, and I don’t think anyone will back you up on that claim.”

“Better than anyone,” Quinn repeats.

“They say no one ever saw you interact,” Cute Cop finally interjects. His voice is like honey salve. “Except for that English project in Mr. Roth’s class and even then, there’s just a few words exchanged between the two of you. It’s almost like you actively avoid each other.”

“Better than anyone,” Quinn says again.

Fat Cop mulls this over. Finally, he leans out of his seat and towards Quinn. “Why is that, Miss Fabray?”

Quinn stares at the ceiling. She tries to figure it all out, but she keeps on forgetting. She keeps trying to remember things from the party, but all she could think of is Rachel and her hair that smells like coconut and sunshine and that’s just how it really is.

Quinn just shrugs. “Things were easier that way.”

The cops watch her silently. She stares back at them. Quinn could almost see the questions swirling in their eyes, ready to burst forth, almost aching to get out into the open and seek the answers, but that’s all they have. All they ever have are just questions.

“What happened?” she asks the cops.

They don’t answer. They keep asking her questions: about what she could remember the night the fire happened, if she knew about the fire, if she knew Rachel’s parents are out of town that night. Quinn’s head swims with all the questions.

She doesn’t remember anything about the night the fire happened. She tells them she doesn’t remember anything about it, and the cops look at her with tight-lipped smiles and wordless responses. The world around her starts to tilt sideways. She grips the hand-rests of the chair, and she knows that her knuckles may be turning white from the effort.

It feels weird, and different. It feels like she’s outside her own body -- or trapped inside her own body. She sees her mother and Santana walking into the den. She watches as Santana is talking fast-paced to the cops and the cops talking to Judy as well. Then, she sees Cute Cop pocketing the notepad as he stands, Fat Cop shaking her mother’s hand. Santana still glares at them.

“We’d like to talk to you again sometime soon, Miss Fabray,” Cute Cop gently tells her as they move to leave, but his voice is distant and he sounds like he’s saying it behind a thick wall of glass or he’s saying underwater -- Quinn just couldn’t decide.


	4. Before

She’s on her way to meet Santana and Brittany for lunch when she’s cornered by David and his ragtag bunch of prissy bitches. Adams and Porter are standing just behind him, flanking his girth like he’s the King of McKinley High. Finn stands not a few feet away, chatting with another football player about something she doesn’t really have time to care about.

“What are you looking at, Freak?” David screams out at her as she makes her way towards the exit doors leading to the courtyard.

Quinn pauses, scoffs a bit and looks straight at David. “I wasn’t looking at you. Believe me, there are so many things better-looking than that of your face -- things I’d rather spend a day of looking before I even look at the constipated, pig-like shit that you call your face.”

David fumes, and it fills Quinn with a momentary sense of pride and victory. She lifts her shoulders back, puffs her chest and tries to look brave. She knows she’s going to pay for it, and she knows that she’ll have to pay a big price, but she smugly looks at David’s eyes anyway. “What about now, Karofsky? Cat got your tongue?”

A sneer occupies most of David’s pig-face and he barrels at her with his hulking body, shoves her to the lockers and kicks her books on the floor. Even though it’s something that David had probably gotten from Bullying 101, it still stings. Quinn feels the familiar heat filling her chest, and she lifts herself from the lockers. The heat fills her, and her fists itch -- wanting to punch the living daylights out of David.

“Pick ‘em up, bitch,” David growls as he walks past her, knocking her again with his shoulder. Quinn finds it hard not to reach up and tear out his throat. But she doesn’t. Instead, Quinn counts from one until ten, and then back again. She tries to calm herself down and tries to smile at the other football players walks past her without even sparing a second glance.

Quinn catches Mr. Roth’s eyes from his classroom, and she gives him a nod, telling him that she’s got everything under control. She tells herself she calm, imagines herself sitting on a tranquil lake, she tells herself that her palms aren’t itching like fuck, and that she’s better now. She tells herself that, repeating the mantra over and over again in her head. I’m better. I’m better. I’m calm and I’m ahead of myself. This year is different. I’m better, I’m better.

At lunch, she sits with Santana and Puck on the farthest table. Rachel sits with Finn and the other popular kids in the school. Puck is talking about the only thing he talks about other than himself -- sex. Santana slinks by, trying not to gag at him -- whether it’s the talk that makes Santana sick or it’s the disgusting way Puck chews his cheeseburger, she doesn’t want to know.

“Where’s Britt?” she asks at them as she sets her tray in front of Puck, trying to ignore the pieces of food flying to her direction. Santana rolls her eyes, and then jerks her thumb towards the Muckraker office across the cafeteria.

“Something she’s gotta finish,” Santana says. Quinn sighs, stares at her food as if it’s an alien thing. Santana goes back to her food, and they enjoy lunch in a relative silence until Puck is chomping noisily on his food like a hog and talking at the same time.

Apparently, Puck had spent his whole summer working at a seedy bar in downtown Lima, sometimes giving free drinks to hot girls so he could get a good lay at the end of the night. Puckerman is a sort of an asshole, but he’s pretty decent when he tries to, unlike everybody else in this stupid school.

“Ew…just ew, Puckerman!” Santana groans. “Now I have to think about you going down on that cougar. Fuck you,” she spits out. Santana is another anomaly in McKinley High as well. She’s a bitch to everyone else except her girlfriend, but like Puck, she’s also a decent person if she tries to.

“What about you, Quinn?” Puck asks her.

“What about me?”

“Where have you been during the summer? It practically gets sickening to listen to Santana go doofus telling us of her times with Brittany, seriously.”

She shrugs. “I’ve been around,” she supplies. There’s no way she could explain everything about what happened to her during the past months. There’s no way she could explain her feelings, even though Santana and Puck are the closest she could get to be her friends. Even then, there’s no need to. It’s also one of the things she likes about the three of them: she doesn’t have to explain herself to them. She comes, she goes and they would just take it as her being Quinn Fabray.

“You should get laid,” Puck says. “I know you’re fluid and all, maybe we can do it...all four of us, you know. Friends helping friends out?” he leers suggestively, and Santana smacks him right at the head.

“Fuck you, Puckerman! You’re a pig!”

Puck squints his eyes at Santana -- in that morbid way that she really doesn’t like because it makes him look twice an asshole he already is. Puck looks mildly chastised, but then his face breaks into a grin and he places a wet, sloppy kiss on Santana’s cheek.

“I know you love me,” he grins, boyish impishness clear upon his face and oblivious to the seething Latina next to him.  
Santana punches his chest. “Fuck you, Puckerman. You could’ve given me STD, you idiot.”

“Don’t tell me I didn’t give you anything.”

She’s barely listening to Puck and Santana’s back-and-forth banter because over Santana’s shoulder she could see her again -- Rachel Berry, looking at her with dark, chocolate eyes. She sees herself standing up to her, saying hello or something and striking up a conversation.

But Quinn doesn’t do that.

Santana turns around to see what she’s looking at, and she gapes at Quinn like she just found out her greatest secret. Santana blinks twice -- and a Cheshire grin splits her face in half, and she nudges Puck with her elbow.

“Jesus bitch!” he hisses in pain as he glares at Santana. “Why don’t you call me with my name when you ask for attention?” Puck groans, clutching at his side miserably. When Santana motions for him to turn around, he sees Rachel and he grins as well.

“Sweet Jesus fucking Christ, Q-ball! That’s one fucking ballsy move, eye-fucking Hudson’s girlfriend in the middle of the cafeteria,” Puck leers and she promptly chokes on her spit.


	5. After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta-ed, please forgive me for mistakes. I hope you enjoy!

The cops come back three days later.

Apparently, they meant it when they said they’ll come back to ask more questions. Quinn politely sits in the den to receive them, flanked by Santana and Sam by her side. Judy is off to work, and so is Brittany. Sam had the afternoon off and Santana -- well, Santana has been spending every day with Quinn.

Cute Cop and Fat Cop ask her about everything. They ask about Rachel and that’s just the same thing, because Everything is Rachel.

“Do you remember anything about the fire, Quinn? May I call you Quinn?” Fat Cop asks. Cute Cop furiously writes down on his trusty notepad. 

“I do not remember anything about the fire. And you can call me Quinn,” she says with a slight shrug of her head. Santana keeps quiet this time, and Sam snakes a protective arm over her shoulders. She leans back into him while she laces her hands with Santana’s.

Fat Cop goes on to say that there was a bonfire, but the bonfire has spread. Then, he says that there’s been gasoline -- all over the hedges and all over the walls. Quinn has no idea of what he’s saying, but then again, she doesn’t remember anything about it. Fat Cop gives a concluding sigh, telling them that someone had probably wanted to spread the fire.

“Who?” Quinn echoes the question all of them would’ve wanted to ask.

Instead of getting an answer, Cute Cop remains silent and pretends to write on his notepad while Fat Cop asks Quinn if she remembers staying with Rachel during the night of the party. Quinn just blankly shakes her head, because she couldn’t remember anything and no matter how hard she tries, she’s always coming up short.

Fat Cop asks her why is it that no one knows she’s friends with Rachel Berry. Quinn sighs. The only explanation she can come up with is that she’s Quinn Fabray and Rachel Berry is Rachel Berry and that’s just it. She can’t explain it further than that.

Fat Cop asks some more questions before finally rising to his feet and he tells them that they’re going to head out. None of them try make to move and walk the cops outside, so Fat Cop and Cute Cop politely shows themselves out.

When the cop car turns down the street, it’s Santana that speaks first. “You gotta stop talking to those assholes,” she says sourly. “You ought to wait until they show up here and have a search warrant or something before you give your statement.”

“Yeah and who told you that?” Quinn snaps at Santana with more snark than necessary.

“Your mom, you stupid ass,” Santana glares at her. Quinn glares back. “What about you, Fish Lips? Don’t you think it’ll do good to Tubbers here if she keeps her mouth shut for the meantime?” Santana turns to Sam, who’s been quiet the entire time.

Sam nods. “I think Santana has a point, Quinn,” he says with a frown. He stretches his legs and yawns a little. “As much as I love to stay, I have to go. My shift’s in thirty minutes. I’ll catch you later, hey?”

He gives a smile at Santana and kisses the crown of Quinn’s head. “Walk me out?” he asks her with a dorky smile plastered on his angelic face but doesn’t quite reach his blue eyes, but Quinn just happily takes his hand.

They step outside into the sweltering Lima afternoon, and Sam gives her a wave as he climbs into his rickety truck. Just as she turns back to the house, her eyes catch sight of the afternoon sun and it hurts her eyes.

There’s a bonfire, and the bonfire is enormous. It’s as enormous and as bright as the summer sun.

The world tilts, and then it rights itself just as she’s almost ready to face-plant onto the footpath leading to her house. With shaky legs and even shakier hands, she manages to catch and hold her grip on the wooden baluster on the front porch, and Quinn counts from one until ten.

There’s a bonfire, and the bonfire is enormous. Rachel is laughing and laughing and maybe, just maybe, Quinn remembers, she’s laughing with Rachel and the enormous sun of a bonfire is burning in Rachel’s eyes.

When she gets inside the house, Santana’s sitting in the den, already playing another round of Last Shelter. The volume is full on again, and the shooting just makes Quinn’s head throb more than anything else. She makes for the kitchen, trying to take one step at a time, her feet shuffling towards the sink.

Her hands find purchase on the cold ceramic, knuckles going white as she grips them with all her might. She turns the faucet on, letting the running water invade her hearing first, then she puts her right hand into the cold water from the tap, and she tries her hardest to slow down the racing of her heart and the tilting of her vision.

She doesn’t even notice that the game sounds are no longer echoing in the den. She doesn’t notice Santana standing behind her, ready to catch her if her knees buckle beneath her. She doesn’t even notice Santana’s warm hand on the small of her back as the Latina leads her to the couch.

“Try to fucking lie the fuck down, Quinn. Else you’d stuff your mouth full of carpet,” Santana says scathingly, although she helps Quinn into the couch with a gentleness that is anti-thesis to her abrasive tone.

Quinn tries to focus on stilling her erratic heartbeat and her unruly breathing. She stares at the ceiling fan on their ceiling, trying to focus herself on one spot and trying to calm down. The whole world around her swims thickly, and she closes her eyes when she feels she couldn’t take it. She waits for what feels like an eternity until the pulsing in her temple fades into a barely-perceptible nudge, and her vision clears.

“There’s a fire, and it burned,” Quinn half-whispers.

Santana snorts. “Yeah Fabray, there’s a fire. Everyone knows about the fire, your fucked-up brain doesn’t register it, but everyone knows about the fire. The cops told you that a many times, Quinn. You’ve forgotten again, have you?”

It’s not until Santana mentions it that Quinn remembers the cops from earlier. “They cops, they were here, right? What did I tell them, San? Rachel drove that night, I remember her driving. Her hair was wild and…and she was singing Don’t Rain on My Parade while we’re driving that night.”

Santana’s face morphs from weirded-out to worried. “Jesus, Q-Ball…you’re…” the Latina worries her bottom lip before gathering the blubbering blonde mess into her arms. “Q-Ball, you’re alright. Quinn, you’re alright. Just…just try to catch your breath, okay? Breathe with me.”

Quinn knows she’s teetering into another panic attack. She knows that she’s scaring the living daylights out of Santana, but she doesn’t know why she can’t seem to control the words spilling out of her mouth and or how she seem to have lost the control over the trembling of her hands.

For what seems like an eternity, Quinn calms down enough for Santana to let her go. The Latina stalks towards the kitchen and carries back a glass of water. Quinn accepts the water gratefully, and drinks it to the last drop. Quinn feels the couch dip as Santana takes a seat next to her.

“I want to see Karofsky’s house,” she says at Santana. 

Santana almost misses it as she opens her phone open to have another go at COD Mobile. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“The house,” Quinn repeats, slowly this time. “I want to see Karofsky’s house,”

Santana plays with her entire body. She had encountered a zombie mob and she tries to duck to keep her avatar from being bitten. Santana shoots, and her victim’s head explodes. Another zombie sneaks at her, but Santana is good and she shoots at it.

“There’s nothing to see there, Quinn.”

Santana gets bitten by a quiet, sneaky undead that crawled behind her avatar and she dies not long after. She sighs as she tosses her phone to the space next to her. She glares at Quinn as if it’s Quinn fault that she died.

“There’s nothing to see there,” she repeats, slowly and her voice is low.

“I want to see Karofsky’s house. Will you drive me there?” her voice wavers, the unsaid plea falling from her trembling lips. Her driver’s license had been suspended until further notice, but she might have the reinstatement of it soon enough.

For now, she just needs Santana to drive. Santana doesn’t budge from her seat.

“I’m going anyway,” Quinn says. “Even if I had to walk.”

The glare Santana sends her way is menacing and could cut a bitch (as the girl would have artfully said it), but it doesn’t affect Quinn in any way. Santana picks up her phone and re-starts it, and Quinn gets up from her perch on the couch and heads for her bedroom to change.

“Fucking hell,” Santana groans, pocketing her phone and swiping her car keys from the coffee table. “I’m fucking coming, yeah? Damn you, Fabray.”

Santana drives and Quinn sits on the passenger seat, checking for her phone every now and then. She had texted Rachel that morning, just like all the other mornings since she had been home from the hospital. The brunette had yet to reply.

“You have to stop staring at your phone,” Santana says as she worries her bottom lip. Santana’s a bad driver. Not deathly bad, but…a bad driver. She almost misses the left turn that leads to Karofsky’s street and when she does, she swerves sloppily that the car skids onto the sidewalk just as someone passes them and almost grazes the car.

Santana almost kills the woman, but Santana doesn’t and the two of them swear as Santana honks the car loudly. It doesn’t matter, though. The woman seems not to be aware of her surroundings nor of their life-threatening car as well. 

When the car’s front tire is back on the asphalt again, Quinn twists in her seat to face Santana. “It’s Kitty,” she tells Santana. Santana does a double-take, but the woman is already walking past them, back turned towards them and her trembling hand clasped on her mouth. 

“She’s crying,” Quinn mutters.

Santana revs the engine and they’re moving again. “No Quinn. She wasn’t.”

“Why was she crying, San?”

Santana doesn’t look at her and keeps her eyes on the road. “Why the fuck Kitty Wilde would be crying, Fabray?”

Quinn sits in silence, mulling things over. Maybe her mind is playing tricks on her again. They spend the remainder of the drive in silence. Santana’s eyes are kept on the road, Quinn kept hers at the speeding hedges beside them.

Quinn had to agree with Santana when the girl had told her that there’s nothing to see at Karofsky’s. More than half of the house had burned down, tall beams of wood sticking out of the ground like flimsy, black toothpicks. Gray ash is strewn all around them, and the ground is white. One can almost mistake it as snow against the dying light.

She’s out of the car, she doesn’t even remember unbuckling her seat or opening the door, but she finds her feet shuffling through the thick ash and the smell of burnt wood is assaulting her nostrils. Tears find themselves in her eyes, and she wonders if it’s her sorrow or just the tears from the smell of smoked fabric and burnt carbon.

The grass is crisp underneath her feet, and every step she takes closer to the carnage brings a flurry of white ash about her. There’s yellow tape everywhere, telling her to take caution, and it she’s not from the authority, the place is off limits.

“Quinn, stop!”

Santana’s voice falls on deaf ears as she ducks her way underneath the first row of yellow tape around the house. She ignores Santana. Quinn rakes the carnage with her hazel eyes. There’s the remnants of a couch, the fireplace, what looked like a piano, a few metallic skeleton chairs are scattered here and there.

The world tilts around her, and she still doesn’t remember.

She hears Santana calling for her, but she ignores her.

The sun is already hidden behind the hills, but the sun still burns her eyes.

“Just what the fuck are you doing here, Quinn?” 

She almost jumps at the gruff voice behind her. When she turns around, she sees David Karofsky, his eyes glinting like dark orbs of obsidian. There's fire and venom in his voice, and she is forced to backtrack a little. She turns to look at the car, and Santana’s already out of it, almost ready to pounce at the hulking boy standing at the driveway.

“N-nothing,” she stammers quietly. David snorts derisively as he crosses a few steps towards her. She notices him limping, and there’s a bad burn at the side of his left ear. He still remains outside the yellow tape.

“You’re not supposed to be here, Quinn,” he says, his voice low and threatening. “You especially, you’re not supposed to be here of all people.”

His jaw is tight. Quinn tries to look past him and focus on the treetops around them. The trees are fine, mostly. There’s just a few branches with wilted and dried leaves -- maybe from the fire, though she couldn’t tell. Light is fading fast, and Quinn knows she had to get out of the place before her mother could worry about her.

“I have to go,” she tells herself as well as David.

The screw in David’s jawbone is tightening and tightening. “Leave,” he tells her angrily, the hatred and rage bubbling to a simmer. “I want you to leave off my family’s property. I don’t ever want to see you again, Quinn. The next time I want to see you, I want to see you in court.”

Quinn really wishes that she could, but her feet is sinking and sinking into the ash. His eyes are dark, and she just ends up looking at him. She doesn’t remember eyes as dark as his, except maybe for Rachel’s, but she’d be damned if she’d tell Rachel that -- Rachel would probably punch her in the nose for good measure.

“Quinn, we gotta go!” Santana’s voice is enough to pull her out of the quicksand she’s falling in and her legs miraculously work. She shuffles past Karofsky, stumbling past him until she reaches Santana’s car. She stumbles into the passenger seat, and she catches her breath.

“Let’s drive,” she tells Santana, and the dark-haired girl wordlessly revs the engine, leaving the Karofsky’s house behind, leaving David behind, leaving the entire world behind them in a flurry of dust and ash.

They’re silent. Santana doesn’t ask her where she wants to go, and Quinn doesn’t tell Santana where to go either. They’re just driving and they’re silent. It’s five minutes into their drive before Quinn actually remembers what happened with her and Karofsky earlier that day.

“What did Karofsky mean, San?” she asks, her voice hollow and tepid. “About court and me?”

Santana snorts, but she refuses eye contact. “He ain’t meaning nothing, Quinn.”

It’s Quinn’s turn to snort. “Seriously? You didn’t even hear half of what he said.”

“So why the fuck are you asking me, then?”

Quinn tries to focus her vision on the passing trees. They’re traveling through the back roads, in the streets where people mostly avoid because there’s nothing but a bunch of woodland around. Only hikers and campers head out to these parts of Lima.

“Because I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me. Mom says she’s too tired when I try to talk about it. Everyone is not telling me everything,” she strains the accuse against her throat tightly, and the tears prick at the sides of her eyes.

Santana is silent, but her knuckles are white as she grips the steering wheel.

“What the fuck is going on, San?”

“Nothing,” Santana says sharply as she takes a sharp left swerve. It slams Quinn to the door. “Nothing is going on, Quinn. Keep your damn mouth shut and nothing’s going to happen. If you don’t remember it, don’t talk about it. See? That’s easy. That’s simple. So shut the fuck up if you don’t remember anything about it.”

“Why?” Quinn finds herself asking.

Santana’s face is the face of thunder. The road is now pebbles and gravel and just rocks. The Latina’s grip on the steering wheel tightens even more, and suddenly, she steps on the brakes. Quinn lurches forward, and she tries to still herself by bracing herself against the dashboard.

“Damn it, Quinn!” Santana seethes. “Damn you! Why don’t you try and use that busted head of yours to figure it out? Why do you think the cops keep coming back to ask you stupid questions?

“I…” Quinn stammers. “I…don’t know. Because I can’t remember anything?”

Santana chuckles darkly. “Wrong answer. Why don’t you try again, stupid? Why do you think the police won’t let you off the hook? They’ve talked to everyone in school, Quinn. Once. They asked for statements and they just did it once. Why do you think the cops keep coming back and they keep asking about the fucking fire?”

Quinn blanches. When Santana puts it like that, it’s glaringly obvious.

“Because they think I set the fire,” Quinn says quietly, voice wavering and cracking into a hoarse whisper, but it feels like her voice is the crack of thunder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Kindly let me know what you think of this chapter and leave a comment! xx


	6. Before

Rachel catches her as she’s walking out of the school. Ever since school had started, she’s never really driven a car anymore, nor even get into one. It makes her remember things, and every time Quinn finds herself near a car, she’d always remember her. Her therapists blame it on trauma, but she blames it on guilt. Every time she’s in a car, it reminds Quinn of her and how everything is all her fault.

“Quinn,” Rachel power walks down the hall so she could catch up with her. “Listen, here...I have our idea for the project,” she waves a piece of paper scribbled with notes and stuck with gold star stickers on the crumpled edges of the paper.

It reads: Life in Lima

“Barden and Webber already called dibs on the topic of what life's like in this rinky-dink town, Berry. Don't you think that topic of yours is a bit unoriginal?” Quinn says sourly, and Rachel just hums. 

They step out of McKinley’s doors just then, and just before Rachel could answer her question, Finn sees them. Rachel's boyfriend waves Rachel over, jogging towards them. Quinn finds it hard not to gag at his face, but because of Rachel’s sake, she tries to swallow down every word she wants to say to Finn Hudson.

“Are you ready to go home?” he asks the brunette girl beside Quinn, but Rachel shakes her head.

“No,” she says. “Sorry I can’t ride home with you. I’m going with Quinn. We’re discussing about the school project Mr. Roth gave us a few days ago,” she says. A flash of something dark crosses the boy’s face, but Quinn chooses to ignore it. She watches as Finn gives Rachel a smile, a lopsided one that shows his dimple and makes him look extra cute.

Rachel half-swoons, Finn basks in the attention and Quinn has already formed two opinions in her mind: Finn is a douche and Rachel is stupid.

Rachel smiles at him and he walks past the two of them, but not before brushing his shoulders slightly with Quinn’s. Rachel’s smile falters a little, but Finn covers it up with a mumbled apology and Rachel is back to smiling again.

Quinn hates how the girl falls for it.

The familiar red haze clouds over her eyes, and the bubbling black goo inside her stomach starts to rise. Everything about guys like Finn Hudson does really makes her feel like shit. Finn Hudson always reminds her that she’s a loser in this school.

She’s pulled out of the red haze by a tan arm wrapping around her own. “Come on, Quinn.”

They fall into step beside each other. A lot of people give them looks, after all it’s not usual for girls like Rachel Berry to hang out with losers like Quinn Fabray. When they walk past the parking lot, Rachel gives Quinn a look.

She rocks on her heels for a moment, brown eyes watching Quinn in trepidation. “Have you...have you been in a car...ever since...” she trails off, not really knowing it what she had just said would set Quinn off. But her words doesn’t and Quinn just gives her a sad smile.

Everyone in school knows. Everyone in Lima knows.

“No.”

Rachel catches up to her, and for a moment they walk in silence. They’re a couple of blocks away when Rachel breaks the silence. “So how do you go to school, Quinn?”

“I walk,” she answers quickly. “Or ride my bike.”

“If it rains or snows?”

“I ride my bike or walk,” Quinn rolls her eyes. “It’s not that far, Rachel.”

“So you’re afraid to sit in a car and drive in it but you’re not afraid to jump from a bridge?” Rachel asks with a quirk of her brow. “You’re a complex person, Quinn Fabray. I’m trying to figure out the way your brain works.”

Quinn glares at her, but she doubts that Rachel would ever figure how her brain works. She somewhat wishes that someone could figure it out, but she doubts it. Hell, even she couldn’t figure her own shit out. 

So, she settles at being pissed at Rachel because being pissed is better than being pitied.

“I’m fucking going home, Berry.”

Rachel laughs and reaches out for her hand as she starts to stomp and power walk down the sidewalk just to get ahead of her. It catches her off-guard, but she doesn’t take her hand away or let go of Rachel’s hand holding hers. “I promise I won’t bring it up. Ever again,” she makes a show of crossing her heart and zipping her mouth. Then Rachel gives her another of her million-watt smiles and Quinn decides then and there to name it Sparkler.

“I don’t believe you,” she glowers.

Rachel just smiles. “You have to, Quinn. Believe, I mean. You just have to,” she reaches out to tap her nose with a slender index finger, then she proceeds to push away the wayward tresses of blonde hair away from the her face. 

Quinn lets out a disgusted snort and she tries to bat away Rachel’s hand. “Stop that, Berry.”

“And you know what I think, Quinn? I think we’re going to look for the center of the Universe. This is what we’re going to do for our project. We’re going to look for the center, and we will appreciate everything when we look for it -- the good, bad, the ugly, the beautiful, the eccentric, the mundane, everything. The boring and the exciting. We’re going to look for the perfect day, and we’re going to make it count,” Rachel says with an animated sweep of her hands.

Quinn grimaces. “Look, the concept of the Universe is abstract and highly arguable, let alone its center. There’s no such thing as that, Berry. You can’t just hand Mr. Roth something like that. It sucks. You can’t take a photo and then say it’s the center of the Universe.”

At this, Rachel chuckles. 

“No,” she says and whips out her phone, immediately snapping a photograph of Quinn’s scrunched face up-close. Quinn glowers. “I can even say that this photo of you in my phone is the center of the universe. You can be my center of the universe, Quinn.”

Quinn stares at her, mouth agape and absolutely stunned. It takes her a couple of seconds before she regains the audacity to make a decent comeback. “There’s no such thing.”

“There is such a thing, Quinn. You just have to find it. We could wander around town, snap photos of the ordinary places, and turn it to something. Turn it to something that counts. I think for one, you want to be someone that counts.”

“You’re deranged, Berry,” Quinn snaps as she walks down the street, trying to get as far away as possible from Rachel. She does a quick head-turn to see if Rachel is coming with her, but the other girl stays rooted on her spot, watching her with mirth in her eyes as she makes her way to her house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have it, another chapter! I would like to thank all of you who have followed through this story so far, I hope you are still enjoying it! Please let me know what you think. Much love. xx


	7. After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello. Enjoy reading! As usual, unbeta-ed, so please, please, forgive this one for the mistakes.

Sam stays with her on Saturday afternoon for video games. 

Brittany has a dance recital in Columbus that afternoon and Santana had been adamant that they’d go. Santana had also been determined to take Quinn with her, but Quinn had declined since she had her check-up with the doctor. Santana even threatened that she’s not going to show up without Quinn, but Judy had practically shoved the Latina outside their door to get her to Columbus that morning.

Now, Sam had offered to keep her company for the afternoon, which is somehow a relief to Quinn. Unlike Santana, Sam isn’t much of an asshole. He doesn’t play with the volume turned all the way up, and he doesn’t curse when his character dies. Also, he doesn't play with his entire body like the way Santana does, and it's not annoying the shit out of Quinn.

They order pizza and Sam had brought Diet Coke. Between bouts of Halo and SpaceMan X, they chomped their way on pepperoni and bacon pizza. Sam talks so much about his job at the cineplex, and Quinn is genuinely interested at his stories.

In-between the rounds of game and pizza, the question is always threatening to fall out of Quinn’s lips. She knows Sam has better temperament than Santana, and she has better chances with Sam being a lot less condescending and abrasive than anyone else.

At three-fifteen, just as Sam had left to relieve himself in the bathroom, Quinn decides that she’d ask him when he comes back. Five minutes later, he sits back on his spot by the foot of the couch, and he tells Quinn to resume the game.

When she doesn’t resume the game, he looks up at her. “You okay?” he asks, his blonde locks plastering across his face. His large lips are upturned into a frog-ish smile, but more than anything, it had made him more endearing.

“Sam,” she breathes in quietly. “What happened?”

Sam blinks at her stupidly. He might be honest, but he’s dyslexic and he sometimes has a hard time grasping things, but Quinn knows he’s not an asshole. And he's pretty decent when he wants to, which is most of the time. That makes him better off than anyone else.

“What happened with what, Quinn?”

Quinn puts down the console next to her on the couch. “With the fire, the party…why are they pinning it up on me, Sam? Why are they thinking I set the fire? Did I set the fire? What happened to Rachel? Where’s Rachel? Why isn’t she talking to me?”

Sam sighs and he puts down the controller he’s using on the floor. He scoots over to Quinn and crosses his legs as he faces her. “Quinn, we’ve told you this before. No one actually knows what happened during the fire. No one’s blaming you, and no one’s saying that it’s you who did it, okay? The cops are here to investigate, but you just have to tell them you don’t want to talk unless you get legal assistance, okay?”

“What about Rachel? Why isn’t she talking to me? Where the fuck is Rachel?” she grips at Sam’s bicep desperately, her fingers digging at the flesh of his skin. Sam winces, but he doesn’t brush Quinn off.

“Rachel is in Pasadena, Quinn. She left a week before you woke up. She didn't want to leave, but NASA would retract her slot for their Junior Program if she stays longer, and you weren't showing signs of waking up. She just felt okay with leaving when Mr. Lopez said you're doing great, except that you wouldn't make it in time before she has to go to the space center,” Sam says slowly. “We’ve been through this. At the hospital. We’ve told you this. You’ve forgotten again, Quinn. Rachel’s in Pasadena and she’s not coming back. Not until the school year starts.”

“Why didn’t she tell me, then?” desperation catches her voice like a vise, and it sticks in her throat as she lets out a futile scream of frustration. Sam just shakes his head and pulls her in for a hug.

“Maybe she’s just busy, maybe she didn’t get reception or something. I heard the NASA observatory there is in the middle of a freaking desert,” Sam says after some time of rocking her and calming her. He plants soft kisses on the crown of her head, just the way he’d comfort Stacey if his little sister gets the nightmares. 

“A thousand things could’ve happened there, Quinn. But Rachel’s okay, she’s just…not available for now, but she’s fine. That’s just how she is, you don’t have to worry about Rachel because Rachel will be...fine,” Sam tells her assuredly. “Come September and she’ll be walking in the school halls again with that ridiculous pink trolley she has, strutting like she’s the queen of McKinley High.”

His joke elicits a giggle from Quinn and it makes her sigh on Sam’s shirt. He smells like fresh laundry and detergent. She pulls away from him slowly and gives him a wet smile. “I guess you’re right, Sam. I guess I just…I just miss her, I suppose.”

Sam nods imperceptibly. “I’m not sure how close you are to Rachel, but I do understand you, Quinn. We'll try calling NASA sometime. You’re okay, okay?”

Quinn nods slowly, and she forces a smile at Sam. “Sorry about your shirt,” she gestures at the wet stain on his chest. “I didn’t mean to snot on it.”

Sam laughs, actually laughs. His laughter booms and echoes around the otherwise quiet den. “Come here you, cheeky one,” he beckons Quinn for a hug, and the blonde girl settles in his arms once more.

They cuddle for a while before Sam picks up his controller again and he waves it at Quinn. “So play?” he says with a dorky tilt of his head. Quinn gives him a shy smile, picks up her own controller, and presses the play button on her controller.

Sam gets invited to dinner, which he modestly accepts. Dinner was quite a mellow affair between Quinn, Sam and her mother. Sam is mostly entertaining with all his impressions, which Judy seems so enamored with his impression of Sean Connery and Bruce Wayne. Quinn, for the most part, just laughs along.

In the back of her mind, something tells her she shouldn’t be this way laughing, not when she couldn’t even remember half of what happened to her in the past month, not when their house seems so empty, not when their house is filled with shadows and secrets are filling ever crack and grit on the floorboards.

Suddenly, the chicken skillet Judy had made for them did not taste appealing to Quinn, the food tastes bitter and chalky, and something underneath her stomach roils aggressively. She tries to wash it down with the sparkling water they’re having, and the other persons on the table are oblivious to the storm brewing within her.

Sam stays a little more after dinner to play a little more with Quinn. He even offers to wash the dishes before playing a few more rounds of the game. For the most part, Quinn is able to ignore the sludge inching its way up her throat. Sam finally says goodbye to her and to Judy at seven-thirty, and she shakily walks him out.

“Are you alright, Quinn?” Sam asks as they stand on the immaculate-white porch of the Fabray’s house.

“I’m okay,” she nods at him assuredly. “I’m just…a bit cold. I might be coming with a flu or something,” she tells him. The lie doesn’t fall easy on her lips, but once she had said it, she feels that the other lies will come easier.

It’s always the first lie that’s the hardest.

Sam gives her a hug before he walks to his truck. When he backs up from her driveway, he gives Quinn a wave. Quinn feels obliged to wave back. She watches him as he turns down the road, his tail-lights disappearing against the darkening night.

When he’s gone out of sight, she walks back to the house and walks in on Judy stacking the dishes Sam had washed. Judy gives her a tired smile as Quinn swoops in for a hug. They’re not the perfect mother-and-daughter relationship, but they are trying.

God, they are both trying.

“I’m heading to Santana’s,” she tells her mother. “I might be sleeping over.”

Judy smiles at her daughter again. Her eyes seem to glisten with tears, but she doesn’t say anything. She runs a wrinkled hand over the side of Quinn’s face and she sighs. “Oh Quinnie,” she says softly, and she looks like she’s about to say more, but she doesn’t. Instead she just nods to Quinn and tells her not to forget her toothbrush.

It’s always the first lie that’s hard. The next ones, they’re easier.

Once ready, she heads to the garage and sees her bike still conveniently hung from the bike rack. It doesn’t take much to take it down, and she’s speeds down the street towards Santana’s. When she reaches the fork on the road leading up to Flanders Street and Park Avenue, she takes a left to Park Avenue before taking a right turn towards the back road that leads to the quarry instead of heading to Flanders where Santana’s house is located.

Her bike jostles every now and then at the rougher road surface. It’s not a thoroughfare often used by the riding public. Today, the road has fresh truck tracks on it. It’s summer, and the hikers from Lima and the neighboring areas in Allen County are in the Shawnee preserve.

She takes another right and it leads her to the dirt road that was once used by the limestone quarry company to load up the limestone for processing. Now, it’s mostly just an empty space full of abandoned white-faced cliffs since the quarry has moved a couple of miles away already a few years back. 

A cloud of dust flurry behind her, but Quinn doesn’t mind. She knows this area like the back of her palm. She’s been here so many nights before.

It’s the same road she’s traveling on, but it feels so much different.

Each of them, she had Rachel with her.

Now, she’s traveling alone.

She pedals harder, the wind is whipping in her hair and she catches sight of the lonesome shack in the distance. No one really bothers to know what it was used for. Rachel had theorized that the shack once housed the laborers from the mine. Quinn had argued that it was just a tool shed. 

The shack looms morosely in the distance, a gray skeleton against its pearl-white surroundings. It’s a scrawny, dilapidated thing. At most, it’s just a small house which looks like it’s going to topple even at the slightest gust of wind -- but it does hold up itself against whatever that’s trying to knock it down.

She brakes hard, and the bike skids to a stop after a spray of pebbles and limestone. She stares at the shack that looms in front of her. Somehow, it had gotten bigger. She remembers sitting with Rachel on the upper level of the shack, looking out of the entirety of Lima Limestone Industries ahead of them.

She walks up to the door and sees that it’s locked. She had no key with her. It had keys? She’s sure she had one. She remembers walking inside this shack. She remembers enjoying the night here with Rachel. She tries to jiggle the locked door, but it doesn’t budge. For all its ugliness, the shack is holding up really good.

She walks a little further until she reaches the sloping ground that leads to the mudhole. The world around her is pearl-white, and the sky above her is a bowl of darkness littered by small, shining nothings.

The quarry is enormous and desolate and cold, so very cold.

The tears seem to freeze themselves on Quinn’s cheeks. She stands on the banking just a few feet from the water, where the rocks dangerously plummet into a sixty-feet drop some fifty feet from the shoreline.

A gust of wind blows through the quarry, howling and sending a spray of dust in a tornado-like spin across the desolate white. Something moves behind her, it sounds like rocks are tumbling, there’s a loud splash and it makes Quinn almost jump out of her skin. 

For a moment, she hears Rachel over the howling wind.

“The water’s rising, Quinn. The world will end in a great flood. It will drown us all,” Rachel had whispered to her that night, her face obscured by that ridiculous mask she always insisted on wearing during their nightly adventures.

Quinn turns around to look, but there’s nothing but a few wayward rocks falling into the water. Santana had told her her brain is busted or something. She shouldn’t be such a scared cat or something -- or something.

Then, her blood is in her head and she’s not sure which way is up anymore. The ground beneath her gives way and she feels her cheeks slam against the sharp rocks and the cold pebbles. There’s water seeping into her skin, there’s water in her eyes, there’s water in her mouth and there’s water angrily rushing into her throat.

But then, she feels Rachel’s fingers in her hair and gravity and the endless sky above her and the deep blue abyss below her becomes irrelevant -- everything becomes irrelevant because Rachel is back and Rachel is with her.

Her head hurts. Pain is everything around her, wrapping around her like a heavy, leaden blanket. It’s also when Rachel comes back and calls her by her name. She cries, the tears spring forth and she doesn’t know where the tears end and the groundwater from the quarry hole begins.

She tells Rachel that she doesn’t understand living without her.

Rachel’s fingers are in her hair. Her lips are on her ears. “I know, Little Lion. I know.”

Quinn doesn’t open her eyes. If she opens her eyes, she knows Rachel will be there. Just behind her closed eyelids, she could make out Rachel’s quiet shadow. Rachel is still whispering in her ear.

“Of course, Quinn. I know, I know. You don’t understand what’s it like to live without you, either,” Rachel’s voice is sweet like honey, and she smells like cinnamon and vanilla and coconut and sunshine and sleep. Quinn sighs, feeling the coolness rushing into her chest. It blossoms and it makes her feel safe. It makes her feel protected. It makes her feel like she's home.

“Rachel,” Quinn says, holding on tightly to the shadowy figure in front of her. “Rachel, please…” she’s not so sure of what she’s pleading for, but she’s pleading for Rachel and it hurts. It just hurts and the pain is irrelevant.

Someone is dragging her to her feet. It’s Rachel, she knows it. Someone else is swearing. It sounds traitorously like Santana, because only Santana could swear so much like that. Quinn tries to close her eyes.

She’s pretty sure she’s going crazy. What’s that word Santana used about her brain again? Stupid busted head. She’s sure she’s going crazy.

But then, she smells cinnamon and vanilla and coconut shampoo and warm hands are encircling her. “You’re not crazy, my Little Lion. You’re not at all crazy,” the honeyed voice is back in her ear, whispering softly, full of conspiracy and haughtiness and Quinn almost cracks a laugh despite the incessant chattering of her teeth.

“You’re not crazy, Quinn. You’ve been here for ages. You’re here. You’ve been here for ages,” Rachel’s voice flutters in the air as sleep claims Quinn’s eyes and warmth envelopes her like a blanket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the time you've spent reading. Please leave a comment and let me know if I did good. Thank you! xx


	8. Before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello. Here's another chapter. I hope you enjoy. Unbeta-ed, so I might have a lot of mistakes coming up. Just for the notice of everyone, this is actually an altered version of the chapter I have posted initially. I thought, the quarry is an important part. What the hell, why leave it behind? Anyways, I hope you'd like it. Enjoy!

She does the one thing she once swore she’d never do that night. She signs herself up on Facebook, and looks Santana up. She’s not online, but it doesn’t matter. She goes to Santana’s list of friends and looks for Rachel Berry’s name. She scrolls through the screen because Santana’s friends with almost everyone in the whole school -- why or how, she doesn’t know nor she wants to know.

She adds Rachel, and figured out that maybe she’s just too busy so she doesn’t stay in front of the computer for so long. Her mother calls her for dinner so she goes downstairs, because she doesn’t want her mother to think she’s lost her mind up in the clouds again.

Her mother had some sort of soup heating in the stove. The house is quiet, except for the incessant whir of the washing machine as Judy is now accustomed to multi-tasking. It had become a daily tradition for the two of them to spend dinner together – ever since Frannie and her father left them.

The two of them eat in relative silence until after two spoonfuls of her tomato soup and chicken alfredo, Judy Fabray asks her about school. She tells Quinn about the stuff that happened at work that day, how she had ran into Santana on the grocery, and how she had bought home DVDs for the two of them for Thursday night.

Quinn knows that it’s just her mother trying to be the cool parent now that it’s just the two of them. Still, she feels bad for her mother. She knows that her mother still loves her father, and that the messed-up marriage and the even messier divorce has somehow messed her mother even more. She also knows that there’s no real way she could fully heal with what happened to her older sister.

Her sister is freaking gone, and no mother will ever get through unscathed from that. No family will ever get through unscathed from something like that.

When Russell Fabray had packed up his things and left their home in favor of some younger woman, just three weeks after her sister’s funeral, her mother had said the one sentence to her that had changed her whole life. She could remember it clearly. They had been standing on the front porch, watching as Russell drive away in his car. Her mother had no tears in her eyes, but they were hollow.

“I never thought I’d end up alone, Quinnie.”

It has never been the words that got to her. It was the way that Judy had said it. It had sounded so final, so certain and no room for changing.

Ever since then, she’d done everything not to be a burden. She does chores at home, buys grocery for her mother and prepares food for the whole week during the weekends. She does everything to be pleasant and not to worry her mother, going to school when she doesn’t feel like it and pretending to be okay when she isn’t. Judy has enough on her plate as it is.

“How was your day, Quinn?” her mother asks her as she toys with her food on her plate.

She doesn’t look up. “Great,” she says, pushing her peas out of the carrots and trying to make a pattern with her vegetables. Peas, carrots, corn, peas, carrots, corn. When she feels her mother’s eyes on her, she lifts her own and she meets her mother’s gaze.

“It was okay, uneventful. Boring. Typical,” she shrugs.

Quinn knows that her mother is trying to be patient with her, just like the way her mother is trying to be patient with the demons prowling in her head, just like the way her mother’s trying to be patient with her whenever she gets sent to the principal’s office, whenever her mother’s trying to be patient with her when she’s gone for hours or when she’s out all night.

Her mother blames her behavior on the divorce and the accident, but deep down, Quinn has this feeling that she also blames herself and sometimes, it makes Quinn feel a lot worse than she already does to herself. It’s not healthy, she knows it but she couldn’t help it. She doesn’t want to dwell on those feelings either so she decides to move the topic to the houses her mother is selling and the weather.

When dinner is over, she feels her mother’s hand touching her own. She looks up and gazes at her mother’s face. “It’s good to see you here with me, Quinn. It’s good,” she smiles thinly, looking at her as if she’d just disappear right in front of her. Quinn realizes how old Judy looks.

Quinn cringes. She knows that her mother wants to count on her, even if she’s trying hard to forgive her daughter’s demons. She takes her fingers off of Quinn’s own, and they work in synchronization. Judy gathers the plates and she turns the dishwasher on. It’s exactly how they are in this house -- both running in different directions, sometimes meeting each other along the way, but never lingering that long.

She walks straight up to her bedroom after doing the dishes. She checks the computer to see if Rachel has accepted her and she sees that she hasn’t yet. She busies herself with her school stuff, arranging them and rearranging them. When she gets tired, she opens her desk drawer and pulls out a pack of cigarettes.

She lets the cigarette hover above her lips for a while, then she remembers that New Quinn doesn’t smoke. Yet. She glowers at herself, and puts the cigarette back into its pack. She keeps it back inside the drawer and picks up Shakespeare’s Othello and does her homework.

Finally, she turns the light off and lies on top of her comforter, staring at the ceiling in the darkness of her cramped room.

It’s almost twelve when Quinn realizes with a start that Rachel has accepted her friend request a few hours ago. She’s still pissed at the girl for ambushing her in front of everyone about their stupid school project and pairing up with her, and then ambushing her in the hallways and in front of Finn Fucking Hudson.

So, she sends her a Facebook message: **Why did you choose to partner with me in the project?**

She doesn’t expect Rachel to answer her message, so she closes Facebook off and tries to sleep. She doesn’t sleep much, and at around one, she feels the darkness suffocating her so she decides to get out of the house. She slips into a pair of jogging pants and a pull-over jacket with a hood, into her shoes and steps out into the chilly night air.

Her feet carry her back to Barnard Bridge, and it surprises her that Rachel is there, leaning over the bridge railing, looking at the dark. When she hears her approach, Rachel turns around, smiles at her and gives her a short wave.

“Too much coffee again?” she asks coyly, the corners of her lips tugging into a curve.

“Too many thoughts?” she asks in return, the snide tone unable to hide from her whisper. It comes out as ugly and menacing, but Rachel’s smile doesn’t falter. Quinn wonders what’s up with this girl. Quinn grimaces inwardly.

"Will you walk with me?" Rachel asks as she pushes herself from where she's leaning on the railing.

"Walk where?" Quinn mutters, but the brunette is already walking and Quinn had to scramble up next to her.

They walk in silence. Rachel occasionally bumps her on the shoulders, sending her shy glances and shy smiles, but it's not enough to make Quinn itch for a conversation. They trek the better half of an hour, from Barnard Bridge to a small, winding trail that climbs up and up towards the abandoned quarry.

When they get to the top, Quinn sucks in a breath. A whole new world lies beyond her, stark white and glimmering. The bare limestone cliffs and mountains shimmer like pearl and snow against the fading moonlight.

"It's..." Quinn mutters, her throat choked up in awe.

"Beautiful?" Rachel asks, her brows raised in a perfect arch.

Quinn could only nod.

In the dim half-light coming from the sliver of a moon above them, Rachel doesn’t look like Rachel the Quarterback’s Girlfriend, or Rachel the Powerful Glee Captain or Rachel the Queen of McKinley High.

Quinn looks at Rachel Berry. She looks a lot like Rachel Berry, free and unburdened and wild. She looks like Rachel Berry the Spark with the Sparkler Smile. She looks like Rachel Who Can Take on the World.

Rachel lets out a laugh, the sound ringing through the darkness.

They're sitting on a boulder on top of the highest cliff they could find, the one overlooking the mudhole. Their legs dangle below them. The air is freezing, their heaving breaths going out in puffy, white clouds. Rachel twiddles with the frayed hem of her sweatshirt, and Quinn taps on her thighs in an unheard tune. They stay silent, they stay quiet, but their heads and their thoughts are screaming and their screams could be heard from miles away.

Half of Quinn prays that Rachel won’t try and start a conversation. The other half of her prays that Rachel would say something, anything. She ends up almost jumping out of her skin when the brunette beside her clears her throat.

“Out there, the stars wait for us, Quinn.”

Quinn snaps her eyes towards Rachel’s, and she seeks them in the dim light. They’re wide, glittering, bright and wild. Wayward locks of chestnut-brown hair dance playfully in the chilly breeze, and Quinn couldn’t help but wonder if this is Rachel the Center of the Universe she’s seeing.

And good Lord, Rachel Berry is looking at her and she's not looking at Quinn the Resident Freak. She's not looking at Quinn the One Who Made It Out Alive. She's not looking at Quinn the Dead Girl's Sister. Instead, she's looking at Quinn like she's Quinn Fabray and no one else.

“Huh?” she says dumbly, and for a moment Rachel blinks -- once, twice. Then Rachel turns her head upwards towards the dark sky powdered with glittering stars.

“The stars,” she repeats it. “I chose to be your partner because...I don’t really know. Here’s what I think though, I think there are many things -- lots of people, places, stuff that people don’t notice every day, and these stuff, they’re just waiting for us to notice them. These things, they want to count for something.”

Quinn stills her fingers on her thighs, and refuses to look at Rachel’s face, fearing what she might see in them. She doesn’t want to see sincerity; she doesn’t want to see lies in them, too. In fact, she doesn’t want to see anything.

“Like I said before, I think you want to count for something, Quinn. Like these stuff. Sure, we don’t know it for certain, whether they count for something, really. Maybe to others they will never be important things, but what if we see these stuff and they will count to us? If they don’t count for something, then at least we got to see these things,” Rachel says.

“So maybe we really should be working together in this project,” Rachel takes her hand, and it surprises the hell out of Quinn. “So let’s go, Quinn. Let’s go and let’s count for something.”

Rachel smiles when Quinn doesn’t answer. She jumps from the boulder and onto the cliff's side, almost tripping on her feet. She's just shy out of six inches from the edge of the cliff overlooking the mudhole. One slip and there’s watery death below.

Quinn yells out in panic, but with the grace of a gymnast, Rachel Berry the Daredevil pirouettes away from the edge, her skirt a flurry behind her. Quinn stands, jumps from her perch on the boulder and lands clumsily after Rachel, tripping on her shoes and falling flat on her ass to the ground.

“Are you trying to kill yourself, Rachel?” Quinn exclaims, glaring at the girl as she sits glumly on her spot.

Rachel smiles, bends down to kiss her cheek. “Not today, Quinn. Not today,” she whispers and skips down the trail, leaving Quinn sitting on the ground, her shoelaces pooled at her feet. Quinn breathes hard against herself, watching as the other girl walks away from her. She doesn’t get up, just watches her and lets Rachel leave her there.

When she quietly closes the front door behind her, the first thing she notices is that the TV is still on, in her mother's bedroom, but she knows that her mother is already asleep. She quietly slips into her room. She had left the computer on, and when she logs back into Facebook, there’s a message for her -- from her only Facebook friend, Rachel.

**Counting for something.**

It’s all that Rachel has said, and she wonders what it could mean. Finally, she settles on not answering it instead and crawls over to her bed, letting the exhaustion cover her and pull her to sleep. She tiredly thinks of having to wake up tomorrow morning.

Quinn wishes that she wouldn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you have enjoyed and please let me know what you think. Hit up that comment button. xx


	9. After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, I do hope you enjoy!

The first thing she sees is the sky littered with stars above her. Rachel’s arms are still warm around her shoulders, and she allows herself these few more minutes of tranquility, of this fragile moment she has with the brunette.

Everything with Rachel is always a fragile moment.

She feels her lungs work, and like clockwork, her mouth spews out an entire ocean. Her watery eyes make the stars above her dance, and she calls for Rachel with a hoarse voice. The girl’s distant laugh replies her almost mockingly.

Then, she feels something hard and cold and wet connect with her jaw and the stars she’s been staring at dig into her eyes and she’s seeing stars again but it’s not a good feeling anymore. It feels like something has fallen off her face. The world goes black around her, and all she feels is the throbbing pain in her jaw.

She wakes up to Santana’s scowling face. Pissed could not even start to describe the expression on Santana’s face.

“What the fuck is this, Fabray? Are you trying to kill yourself?” she seethes angrily at her, chest heaving and mouth snarling like a rabid dog. Santana looks like she’s going to sock her in the jaw for the second time that night.

“What the fuck are you just thinking coming here? Color me fucking surprised when Mama Fabray calls me while I’m still in Columbus with my girlfriend, enjoying my dinner in peace, asking me if you’re having the best fucking time in my house since you are fucking sleeping over?” she screeches loudly at Quinn.

Quinn’s lower lip trembles in shame and guilt. “I can’t remember,” she declares mournfully. Fresh tears well out from her hazel eyes and Santana’s once-pissed scowl softens. Tan, warm hands rub the back of her neck.

“I can’t remember anything, San! I...I thought that if I’d come here, I’d remember what happened. If I’d come here, I’d find answers or whatever...to all those things they ask me...” she trails off, hot tears of anguish and embarrassment flowing silently on her cheeks.

Santana pulls her in for a hug, not really caring if she’s going to get wet because Quinn is soaked to the bone. The body warmth is welcome, and Quinn just melts into the darker girl’s embrace. Santana cradles her head.

“I’ve got a spare change of clothes in the backseat,” Quinn hears Santana say. “And I’m sorry I slapped you in the face, but you were calling for Rachel. What were you thinking, Quinn? Being here at night.”

“I’m sorry…I’m sorry…” she hiccups repeatedly. She must have looked like a mess, her face streaked with tear stains. Her apologies become mumbled, incoherent bursts of sobs, but Santana is cradling her like a newborn babe and she just _aches._

“I…I thought if…” she hiccups. “If I come here…I’d get to…remember…”

Santana sighs. “Let’s head home, Quinn. You hit your head and you need to rest.”

A pair of strong arms pull Quinn up. She smells detergent and fresh laundry and she knows the familiarity of the smell -- it’s Sam. She clings to his neck as he carries her to Santana’s Jeep, where Brittany is seated at the back seat.

The blonde girl scoots over as Sam settles her next to Brittany in the backseat of Santana’s Jeep. A thick, fleece blanket drapes around her and Santana sits next to her, intermittently squashing her between the two girls. Sam climbs behind the wheel and they wordlessly head out of the quarry, leaving a trail of dust and pebbles behind them.

They’re entirely silent along the ride. Quinn slips between half-asleep and half-awake all throughout the fifteen-minute drive from the quarry. She watches as Sam heatedly try to convince Santana to let him at least drive them back instead of dropping him off on the way to Santana’s house.

Santana sighs. “We got this, Sam. Really. I appreciate you all of these things you’re doing, but I know you’re doing double shifts tomorrow. You can go and rest. I’ll look after Quinn. I promise,” she says softly and Sam reluctantly acquiesces.

They make a stop at Sam’s five minutes later and leaves him at the driveway, with Sam watching them from his porch with a worried look behind his bright-blue, but very, very tired eyes. Quinn wonders what kind of sadness lingers in his eyes, too.

They spend the ride in relative silence. Santana had changed seats and is now driving the vehicle, gripping the steering wheel more than Quinn would like. Brittany remained with her at the backseat, toying the frayed edges of the fleece blanket that was draped warmly over Quinn’s shoulders.

“Look, Fabray, as much as I want to punch you in the face for lying to your mother, I don’t want to cause her more worry than necessary,” Santana spats at her as they turn to Flanders Street. “So you’re fucking spending the night at my house, just like what you said to her tonight.”

Quinn, for her benefit, stays quiet and hangs her head low. While Quinn looks like a kicked puppy, she feels even worse. Brittany gives her a worried look, and she catches Santana eye her with unshed tears through the rear view mirror.

“This stunt you’ve pulled tonight, Fabray? I hope you find it amusing,” Santana continues. “Don’t ever fucking do this again,” she tells Quinn, but the hazel-eyed blonde is just nodding along to her words.

“Are you even fucking listening to me, Quinn?” Quinn watches Santana seethe at her. A small shriek escapes her mouth when Santana almost runs over her own mailbox. “You’re not fucking listening to me, you moron! You, this stunt you’re doing, is fucking selfish and unnecessary.”

“Santana, that’s enough already,” Brittany quietly tells Santana and it shuts Santana up. The olive-skinned girl lets out a long, low sigh and she tries to massage her temples.

“Britt, can you please take Quinn inside?” Santana says almost brokenly, and Quinn wants to apologize, so bad but her words are stuck in her throat and her tears are frozen in place and all she could do is put one foot forward as Brittany urges her to get inside the Lopez residence.

“I’ll fill the tub for you if you want a bath, Quinn. Can you get out of your clothes?” Brittany asks her, and it’s enough to send the gears of Quinn’s brain to work. She gives Brittany a slight nod, and she tells the taller blonde that she can take it from there.

Twenty minutes later, she steps out of Santana’s bathroom only to find a scowling Santana in the den, flipping through the TV channels. Brittany is somewhere in the kitchen, the unmistakable rush of water is running in the sink.

Quinn aches at how domesticated her friends are, how emotionally stable they seem despite everything life had thrown at them -- and she’s there, standing in borrowed clothes, fraying and unraveling at the seams just because she couldn’t seem to remember what’s happened to her in the past month.

She sits next to Santana on the couch, the Latina only giving her a grunt as an acknowledgment. She skirts at the sides, watching her friend like the way a vulture would look at its prey: calculating, full of trepidation.

Santana finally settles for an old rerun of We Bare Bears. Quinn watches with mild interest as Santana glues her eyes to the TV. They stay at both ends of the couch, unwilling to drag each other into a conversation, nor willing to start one.

Santana seems content from her perch on the right side of the couch, but Quinn is slowly unraveling in the inside. The questions are back with a burning sensation in her throat, and even when she wills them to quiet, the voices in hear is raucous and loud.

“I did something, didn’t I?” she asks hollowly and Santana finally tears her gaze away from the TV just long enough to look at her. “At the party, I must have done something, maybe said something to piss Rachel off. She’s not returning any of my calls.”

Santana sighs. “Quinn, your phone got soaked. That’s why Rachel isn’t calling you,” she says. “It got soaked in the mudhole when you went there with Rachel, remember? Did you forget again?”

Quinn sighs, smiles apologetically at Santana. “Oh yeah, sorry I forgot again.”

“It’s okay,” Santana says. “Just don’t wait around the house phone for Rachel to call, okay? Everything is fine, and you shouldn’t worry about her. How’s your head feeling?” she asks, steering the conversation away from Rachel.

“I don’t know,” Quinn shrugs. “I keep having these stuff inside my head, things I don’t exactly remember happening to me or to other people. I keep thinking about what the cops are asking me about, you know? About the fire, I mean. I think, maybe I did something to piss someone or whatever,” she rambles on.

Santana lays a hand on her shoulder and pats it gently. “It’ll come back soon, Quinn.”

Brittany skips over towards them and squeezes herself between Quinn and Santana. She gives Quinn a sloppy kiss on the temple and smiles. “I want to cuddle with you, Quinnie-boo.”

Quinn smiles, her smile not quite reaching her hazel eyes. She debates whether she’d ask her about Rachel or not, but she settles on not asking the other girl where Rachel might be, because lately she’s receiving the same answers whenever she asks anything about Rachel -- that she’s gone to Pasadena for her summer internship and isn’t coming back not until September.

Besides, she knows, with Santana just a few feet away from her, she’s sure the dark-haired girl would sock her in the jaw if she ever asks another question about where Rachel is.

The next day, Quinn wakes up to the smell of chorizo cooking and Brittany’s singing. She drowsily moves her head around, but there’s a pulsing pain in her temples and her eyes are hurting in the bright sunlight. Santana cackles at her as she tries hard to ward of the sunlight on her face.

“Damn right you deserve that, bitch.”

“Pull the blinds down,” she groans, and thankfully, Santana pulls the blinds down. She groans in relief when the blinding sunlight disappears. She groans, getting up from her uncomfortable position on the couch. She had fallen asleep through the cartoon program last night, she had surmised.

Santana bounds over to her, she fake-puts her right palm against Quinn’s forehead, and then pulling it like it’s burning. “What’s up with you, Quinn? You look like Hulk has trampled you over.”

Quinn just nods dumbly at her, the pain in her head is epic and horrible. “My…my head hurts…headache…” she croaks out bitterly at her friend and a look of worry passes over Santana’s facial features.

“Mom’s calling you for breakfast. Hurry up because Britt is leaving in an hour and a half and we’ll drop you on the way,” Santana tells her before turning on her heels. She comes back not a minute later, setting down a glass of water and an Advil on the end table next to the couch.

“And fucking take this before I sock you in the jaw again,” Santana says.

Quinn just smiles. She knows that the threats Santana gives her are just that -- empty threats. Santana is more bark than bite. However, Quinn nods at Santana and takes the medicine into her mouth before padding into the kitchen.

She sits awkwardly on a bar stool at the counter while Santana’s mother plates her a buffet: chorizos, eggs, churros and a steaming mug of hot chocolate. When Quinn challenges to lift an eyebrow at her plate, Maribel flashes her a scowl.

“Eat, before I force your food down your throat, young lady,” the older Lopez tells her. “I don’t care how many times my daughter calls you Tubbers for being so fat, but when you’re in my house, you eat when I tell you to eat.”

Quinn shrugs. “Thanks, Maribel. You…you didn’t really have to…do all of this,” she sighs. “You and Santana and everyone else have been doing so much and I…” Quinn feels the tears threaten to fall again and she sniffs a little.

“Okay, hold up,” Maribel says. “First of all, we didn’t have to do this, yes that is correct, but I want to do this. Santana wants to do this, everyone wants to do this,” Maribel heaves, but her face is taking a somber expression and she puts an arm around Quinn’s shoulders.

“And you better believe me, Quinn Fabray, we choose to do this. We want to do this because we want you to know we care,” Maribel tells her. “Because we all care about you. You have to understand that.”

Quinn nods, and when Maribel squeezes her shoulder reassuringly, the first tear falls from her eyes and she hastily wipes it. In her haste, she almost misses it, but just almost. When she lifts her eyes back to Maribel, for a moment Quinn wonders why she sees the odd look of hesitation lingers in Maribel’s brown eyes.

An hour later, the three of them pile up in Santana’s Jeep. Quinn seats herself in the backseat, and Brittany pulls on one of her earphones to listen to some music while Santana turns the dial on the radio to WOHN.

They spend the drive in relative silence.

“Santana, I’m sorry I went to the quarry,” she says softly. She gazes at Santana’s eyes through the rear view mirror and hear heart clenches because all she sees in the dark-haired girl’s eyes is pure understanding.

“When I was there at the quarry, all I could remember was Rachel. I can’t remember clearly, but I remember Rachel. She was there with me, San. In the mudhole. We were swimming in the mudhole,” she tries to tell her friends but it’s hard to gauge their reactions when they have their backs turned on her and she could only see portions of their faces in the mirrors beyond them.

She catches sight of Santana slightly nodding, but the brunette is keeping her eyes glued to the road. However, it doesn’t escape Quinn’s notice, how Brittany squeezes Santana’s hand over the console and how Santana lovingly squeezes back, as if reassuring the other girl that she’s there and she’s okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kindly let me know what you think by hitting up the comments section below! Much love xx.


	10. Before

On Monday, Quinn watches bemusedly at Rachel as she parks her pink bike on the bike rack out in the parking lot. The brunette walks through William McKinley’s threshold, ridiculously-bright pink helmet dangling from her left arm, holding her head high and not caring at the whispered and hushed talks behind her back.

When Friday rolls in that week, Rachel is still riding bikes to school. That day, on first period English, Mr. Roth makes them watch a documentary on how literature has evolved for women and women’s rights during the eighteenth and nineteenth century. When the thirty-minute documentary finished, he promptly gives them the seat work: a two-page critique on their thoughts and insights and relate it to their previous discussion on feminism in literature.

It’s then that a tan hand slaps a map on her desk. It’s a map of Lima, and a large X is drawn over the quarry site they’ve visited on Friday night. There’s another X on a portion near Shawnee Natural Reserve. Quinn looks up at a smiling Rachel. It’s not the Sparkler smile, but it’s a smile nonetheless. She flips it over and sees a Post-it note on the back, the letters looped in a girly script: **_Counting for something._**

Rachel leans so close to her that Quinn could smell her vanilla and coconut shampoo. “I’ll meet you after class,” the brunette whispers. “Parking lot at three.”

Quinn unconsciously lets out the breath she doesn’t know she’s holding when Rachel leaves her personal bubble. She doesn’t even notice the bell ringing, signalling the end of first period. She stays rooted on the seat as everyone around her scrambles for the door.

And then, off Rachel goes, joining the moving stream of students into the hallway. Finn wraps and arm around her, protecting her from the shuffling. She sits in the classroom until the first few students for the next class trickle in.

She stares at the map on top of her desk. She stares and stares at it for a full minute. The colored map just stares back at her, and she keeps at it until an acne-faced ginger boy asks her if she is new to the class. She gives him a wide smile, shakes her head wildly as stands from her chair and saunters out of the room. She catches her elbow on the doorjamb as she makes her way out. She hears a few snickers, but Quinn feels lightweight and she doesn’t mind. Her mind is not firing a million miles a minute, and she just giggles maniacally much to everyone’s surprise. She knocks her other elbow for good measure before doing a curtsy to the class behind her.

“Fabfreak is on a roll today,” she hears someone say as she steps out of the classroom door, but she’s too high up in the skies to even care.

Her feeling of elation proves to be short-lived. It only lasts her around three hours before some trouble stirs during lunch time. Quinn surmises that some higher being is evidently getting the kick out of fucking her life up.

Quinn weaves her way through the sea of bodies in the cafeteria. This is something someone never tells you about high schools in Lima or high schools in general -- the cafeteria is always packed during lunch period. Quinn sees that Santana is already seated on their corner table, but she spots Karofsky moving through the line and she is not looking forward to being close to him so she decides to take the longer route to their table.

Quinn ducks past a couple of freshmen cheerleaders who are chattering relentlessly about who slept with who and who did the deed with who. She dodges past the nerds and finally walks towards Santana, who’s already waiting for her on their usual corner table. Puck isn’t around, but that’s just Puck being Puck.

“Where’s Britt?” she asks as she puts her submarine sandwich on the tabletop.

“She’s around here somewhere. She told me she’d get me some fries,” Santana says, now looking fidgety as well. Brittany tends to get lost in the hallway, that’s why Santana keeps an eye on her. Quinn watches as Santana scan the cafeteria, and she does the same – the two of them looks for Brittany amongst the sea of people.

There’s a yelp from the far end of the line and Santana’s head immediately snaps to that direction. The Latina is immediately on her feet, taking two great strides towards the blonde. Quinn sucks in her breath when she realizes what made Santana so angry.

David Karofsky and Azimio Adams are towering over Brittany, who’s sprawled on the linoleum of the floor with a scared look on her face. The fries she had been probably holding is already scattered around her. The blonde girl is crying her eyes out. By the time she reached Brittany, there’s a crowd around them already and Santana is already swearing at the two boys. Quinn could pick up a few choice Spanish words spouting off from Santana.

“...what did you just call my girlfriend, you bitch?” Santana screams as she punches at Azimio’s hulking body. The small, feisty Latina is clawing at Azimio’s face, and some of the football jocks are already tearing Santana away from Azimio.

“Hijo de puta! I will kill you, I will fucking kill you!” Santana’s scream surfaces above the raucous noise of the cafeteria. Finn Hudson’s big arms wrap around Santana’s lithe frame, effectively managing to break her away from Azimio’s face. Everyone looks at Finn as if he’s some sort of superhero and he’s made of gold.

Quinn feels the blood roar in her ears, her heartbeat picking up. Something bitter rises up her throat. She tastes bile on her tongue. She’s ready to jump into the fray when she feels a hand holding her wrist. She turns around, and she’s met with coconut-smelling brown hair, and a lilted voice that reminds her of creamy coffee is whispering in her ear.

“Just don’t, Quinn.”

Rachel is whispering to her, the same words, over and over again. The lunch monitor arrives and pries the screaming Santana off of Finn. Quinn feels the wave of students in front of her push her farther away from her friends. Santana is still cursing them in Spanish as the lunch monitor drags her down to Principal Figgins’ office. The two jocks, knowing that they had gotten away from trouble, smirked cockily towards the student body.

“Why did you stop me?” Quinn rounds angrily at Rachel, who’s still holding her.

“I had to,” Rachel says breathlessly. “If I didn’t, it would probably turn out worse.”

Quinn huffs at Rachel, walks back to her table to get her submarine sandwich. She angrily throws it to the wall, causing everyone including Rachel to look at her with wide-eyed fear. Girls start whispering behind her as she walks out of the cafeteria, but she doesn’t look back.

Quinn skips her afternoon class after lunch.

Instead, she’s sitting in the darkroom of McKinley’s Art wing. It’s more of a closet than a room, and it’s strewn with acetate paper, overexposed photos, and badly-developed pictures. The room reeks of acetate and ink, and a portion at the back wall is dedicated to the photos that Quinn had successfully developed.

Quinn stares at the photographs, because really, it’s the only thing she’s left to do. She trails her eyes from where her fingers grazed the photograph paper lightly, and she sometimes counts to ten to calm herself down and keep herself from tearing all the paper in the room.

She hears a scuffle by the door and when she turns around, she sees Rachel standing by the doorway, her head slightly bowed and looking hesitant and unsure -- so much like the Rachel she’d always see outside of school and so unlike from the Rachel who is always attached to Finn’s arms as the two walk down the halls of McKinley.

“May I come in, Quinn?” she whispers in the dim-lit room. Rachel must have seen her nod because she steps into the dark of the room, her shoes lightly scuffling against the grime-covered floor. She walks over to Quinn, and sits right next to her on the floor. They sit in the silence, and just like so many times before, neither knows how to start a conversation.

“I’m sorry I had to stop you from attacking Azimio and Karofsky earlier,” Rachel says after sometime of silence. “I know you wanted to, you felt the need to help your friends, but if I would’ve let you, I’m sure those two would find a way to not just get you detention, Quinn. They’d kick you out.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You’re right, I don’t know that,” Rachel sighs. Quinn stays silent.

“But I know they’ve done it before Quinn,” she continues. In the dim half-light of the room, Rachel’s eyes find purchase with hers and they stare at her -- dark and wide and full of understanding. “They’ve done it with you and Karofsky. and I don’t think they wouldn’t do it again. It’s not entirely fair, and people like you oftentimes get the worst of it, even if you don’t deserve it.”

“Okay, one, you have to understand, Rachel Berry, that what happened last year was that I did not want to kill Karofsky, contrary to what that prissy bitch is spouting off. I wanted to hit that chalkboard with the dissecting pan. Not his pig-face,” Quinn mutters darkly at the brunette standing in front of her, and she tastes the bitter sludge making its way up in her throat again.

“And second, what would you have me do then, Rachel? Sit back and watch as my friends, my only friends in this school gets bullied just because they are girls who happen to like girls and that there are boys who are not down with that and that fact hurts their fragile ego?” Quinn grits out at Rachel, her breaths coming in quick and her chest starting to heave.

“No,” Rachel says, her voice still and calm. “You can’t fight them openly, Quinn. People like Azimio and Karofsky are as shady as they come, and you can’t just fight them out front. You have to be shady to fight them, too. If you fight them out in the open, you’ll probably never gonna win.”

“So what would you have me do?” Quinn grits out.

Rachel sits back, a devious smile dancing at the corners of her lips. “You let them get a taste of what it feels like, Quinn. Give them a dose of their own medicine,” she says. “People like Azimio and Karofsky are all over this school.”

Quinn sighs and her shoulders slump ever so slightly. When Rachel takes both of her hands, the blonde feels the black sludge retreat back into the bottom of her stomach. “Yeah, this place is a dump,” she shakily lets out.

“Old McKinley has a farm,” Rachel sing-songs. “Asshole here, asshole there.”

“And they called it high school,” Quinn finishes for the two of them before bursting into a rueful laugh. Rachel laughs along with her. She knows that it’s a morbid, twisted way, and she knows she shouldn’t feel good about it, but Quinn does feel golden.

It’s almost another twenty more minutes when Rachel decides to speak again. “You should bring your camera with you,” Rachel tells her. Quinn just hums in return, but the blonde scoots over and puts her camera inside her bag. Rachel watches the blonde in silence as she moves through the cramped room.

“Is there, by any chance, you’d show up for your last class today?”

Quinn raises a brow. “Are you sending me to class, Rachel?”

“A girl can try,” Rachel bites back haughtily, and she takes Quinn’s hand to drag her out of the darkroom. When they step into the light, the hallway is empty. Most of the students are in their classes or in the library for study hall.

“My study period’s almost over,” Rachel declares as she ruffles Quinn’s hair. “And your last class is about to start in like…fifteen minutes, so you better hurry up. It’ll take you maybe five to seven minutes to get to your AP Chemistry class, so you better run really fast, Fabray.”

“Are you like…stalking me? How do you even know these things?”

Rachel laughs as she walks away from Quinn. Before the brunette is out of earshot, she turns around and winks at Quinn, leaving the blonde stupefied and rooted at her spot in the middle of the hallway. “I will see you after your class ends, Little Lion.”

They pass by cornfield after cornfield before taking a turn towards a country road. It’s filled with more and more cornfields, and the yellowing leaves give the sunset a golden glow. It’s something that Quinn had always loved, and the view sets a fluttering in her heart.

“Wait, wait...” she says, squeezing hard at the brake handles. “I’m going to take a picture.”

Rachel smiles at her. “Not here, Quinn. Not here. Not yet,” she takes Quinn’s hand. “I’ll show you something and you’ll get a picture of it, but not here.”

The brunette pedals hard on her bike, but Quinn decides to hang around for a while, taking snapshots of the golden cornfield beyond her. Rachel throws a pebble at her, and she huffs, but she pedals on her bike and follows Rachel’s lead. They ride their bike through the ground, sending sprays of dust behind them.

They stop at a small steel bridge, and Rachel lies her bike right across the road. Quinn follows suit, and Rachel climbs the wall that serves as the bridge’s guardrail and perches herself on it. Quinn sits next to Rachel and the two of them watches as the sun dips low in the sky.

They stare at the valley before them, the sun almost aligning with the river that snakes between the hills. Th large orange orb of fire in the sky sits nestled between the bosom of two distant mountains.

“I am rooted, but I flow,” Rachel tones out, and Quinn stares at the brunette as they sit on the bridge rails. Rachel smiles at her then, and Quinn notices that Rachel’s hair is the color of burnt mahogany and her eyes the color of umber. “All gold, flowing…”

“I like it,” Quinn finally admits. “Where’s it from?”

“Virginia Woolf’s The Waves,” Rachel shrugs.

Quinn shrugs back, and they sit in silence as the sun disappears behind the hills. It’s quiet, and peaceful and for once, Quinn’s heart seems at peace. She doesn’t feel like she’s drowning or someone is breathing down her neck or her sister’s ghost is behind her, blaming her for everything she did.

They watch the sun hide beneath the mountaintops.

“Did you get a picture of it?” Rachel asks as they make their way back to where they had parked their bikes. Quinn nods.

“We should have been collecting stuff, Rachel. Like leaves or whatever to put in our journal. Apart from all the shitty pictures I probably got. We could have taken a video,” Quinn groans at Rachel.

“I get what you mean, Quinn. I mean, you’re thinking about Mr. Roth and our stupid English project,” the brunette tells her softly. “But I’ll tell you something, Quinn Fabray. When we’re looking for the fucking center of the Universe, we’re going to be in the moment. We’re going to be here, now. We’re going to take pictures for the project, but we’re going to be in this moment. You and I. You and me. Us. The Center of the Universe is this Moment, the Center of the Universe is Us,” Rachel says it with a twinkle in her eye.

Quinn doesn’t say anything, but she finds her thoughts latching and dwelling into Rachel’s words. The more she thinks of the brunette’s words, the more she starts to agree with them, but she doesn’t tell Rachel that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your comment means love to me, so hit up that comment button below. xx


	11. After

The next day, she doesn’t get out of bed. Judy knocks on her door, but she ignores it and pretends to be asleep. She doesn’t get out of bed the next day after that, either. On the morning of the third day, Sam breaks into her door and walks into her room.

He’s wearing his usual Saturday clothes -- checkered button-down shirt hanging open, revealing an otherwise geeky shirt underneath and a pair of scruffy looking jeans and scruffy looking sneakers.

He tosses a game console towards her. “Get up, Quinn. Let’s play.”

Quinn glowers at him from the bed and sinks lower into her sheets. Sam sits on the edge of her bed, hands hovering over her arm, only the thin material of cloth dividing them. He’s smiling with those guppy fish lips of his and it sorts of disgusts her.

“Come on, Quinn. I know you want to play,” Sam urges gently, like he doesn’t want to push too hard for fear of breaking her. He looks sympathetically at her. “You shouldn’t feel like that, Quinn. Come on, let me help you. Look, I know how you feel, okay?”

Quinn narrows her eyes at him. He looks like he’s pitying her, and she doesn’t like to be pitied.

She feels something red bubble inside her. It fizzles, like flat coke being shaken too roughly on a summer afternoon. She feels it working its way towards her throat and into her face. Her hands shake under the sheets and they start to itch. She takes the game console in her hands, and flings it right into the wall behind Sam.

Sam ducks, even though Quinn has no intention of hitting him anyway -- although he’s just sitting in the line of fire. The game console hits the wall, breaking into pieces. Sam stares at her in wide-eyed horror, but he swallows whatever words he wants to say and holds her shaking hand instead.

“Calm down, Quinn. I need you to calm down,” he says. “And tell me what you feel.”

She lunges angrily towards Sam, clutched at the lapels of his shirt and fisted them tight in her small, shaking hands. “Fuck you, Evans. You have no fucking idea what I feel, so you can go fucking mind your own fucking business because you just fucking know nothing!” she heaves out loudly.

Her throat feels raw and hoarse.

Quinn collapses on the floor, her knees giving out. Sam watches her break, and for a moment he just sort of hovers over her -- debating to give her a hug or just walk away. Quinn knows Rachel would never do that. Rachel would outright hug her and tell her the things she wants to hear.

But she knows Rachel is a thousand miles away from her.

She hears Sam sigh, and she could literally hear the slump on those broad shoulders of his. “Look, I’ll...I’ll just go, okay?” he says and bends over to give Quinn a kiss on the head before leaving the room.

Quinn doesn’t budge from her spot on the floor, she just keeps on crying, even when she hears Sam walking down the stairs, even when she hears him drive away in his ratty old truck and turn down the street.

She doesn’t move, even when all she hears is the silence.

Santana walks in her room at around six in the afternoon that same day. It’s still light outside, the sun is barely behind the trees and everything in her room just looks golden.

If her eyes aren’t so full of the red haze, she would’ve seen how beautiful sunshine is at the moment, but Quinn has opted to shut her eyes and just forget the world around her.

She isn’t granted much reprieve when she feels Santana tugging at her legs.

“Quinn,” Santana demands at her sleeping form on the floor. “Get up and get a shower. You smell like ass.”

She moves, but she only moves herself to the bed and crawls in it. Santana forcefully yanks her arm away from the sheets, glaring at her like the way she glares at everyone else when things aren’t going her way.

“Goddamn it, Quinn! I’m tired of you moping the fuck around so do yourself a favor: ****go take a fucking shower.**** ”

Santana drops her arm and moves around to collect the various clothes that littered around her room. There’s a stinking pile of shirts underneath her bed, a sock that smells like something rotten lies stuck between her drawer and the wall behind it. Santana cringes at the rotten apple that sits on the bookshelf at the far end of the room. Santana turns to toss the apple into the trash.

“No,” she says rather weakly and Santana’s head whipped up.

“Yeah. That’s bullshit, Quinn. Just bullshit,” Santana says. “You know what? You need to get out of the house, take a walk and go get some fresh air or something.”

“Santana, there’s air in here,” Quinn takes a deep breath just to prove it.

“Fuck you,” the darker girl snarls. “Quit being such a dumbass, Quinn. Get up.”

“No.”

“Jesus Fucking Christ,” Santana groans and she looks up to the ceiling as if Jesus is actually there with them. “Come on, Tubbers. Get up. We’re gonna do something. Anything. What do you want to do?”

“I just want to lie here,” Quinn monotones out. “Or at the quarry.”

Santana pulls her up as if she did not hear her. “We’re going to McDonald’s you asshole. That’d be good. We’re going to order the biggest cheeseburger they have and we’ll eat it in my jeep, then we could drive to the quarry, just to fucking prove you there’s nothing for you there. There’s nothing for us there in the quarry, Quinn.”

Quinn doesn’t hear anything more from Santana. The next thing she realizes is that she’s standing onto her feet, her palm is flying through the air, straight to Santana’s face. The large, loud sound of a thwack of flesh hitting flesh is the last thing they hear.

“WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU, TUBBERS?!” Santana roars at her, cradling her stinging cheek. “Oh my God, they’re fucking right about you, Quinn. God, fuck! You actually slapped me!”

Quinn just stands there, eyes wide and unblinking, chest heaving and cheeks flushed as if she had been under the summer sun for so long. She just watches as Santana howls in anguish.

“They’re fucking right, bitch. You’re crazy, Quinn. You’ve fucking lost your mind,” Santana heaves out, swallowing thickly. “You know what you are? You’re an asshole. You’re a fucked-up little shit, like seriously fucked up. Goddamn it, fuck. And screw you, bitch! Screw you!” Santana spits out angrily as she stomps around the bedroom.

But Santana doesn’t leave. The Latina moves around, pulling at curtains and blinders and opening windows. She’s shoveling trash into the bin, taking dirty clothes from under the bed. Finally, she tosses a pair of jeans and a shirt at Quinn.

“Get fucking changed,” she seethes out angrily at Quinn, but Quinn goes back to lie on her bed again.

“Seriously Tubbers,” Santana says, her voice coated with warning and threatening. “Do you want us to throw hands again, because I’m not bound to sit here and take hits. I’ll fucking slap you back this time.”

Quinn blinks at her absently. “I don’t want to get out of bed,” she says softly. “I want to stay here and feel sorry for all the things I couldn’t remember and I want to feel sorry for myself and I want...I want to imagine the end of the world. Rachel...Rachel, she always does that. She always imagines the end of the world, all the things ceasing to breathe. Everything ending. Do you know she does that, imagining them, I mean? Do you know she has a lot of things in her mind? She wants...she wanted to see one. She’s always loved the stars...see, if a star explodes, it could mean some sort of apocalypse. She thinks that the world will end when the sun explodes, San. Do you know Rachel thinks that?”

She sees the unshed tears in Santana’s eyes as the other girl strides towards her bed. Santana grabs the collar of her shirt and looks at her eyes. “I’ll tell you something about apocalypses,” she grits out. “You’re not going to see it, you and me and Britt and fucking Rachel -- we’re not fucking going to see the world ending. We’re going to take on the world, do you get that?”

Quinn’s lips tremble as she shakily lets out a breath. Her arms go slack on her side, and she stares deep into Santana’s eyes. “Santana, I need you to leave.”

Santana drops her back to the bed. “The hell I will,” she snaps darkly. “And you’re fucking coming with me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you go, another chapter. I hope you have enjoyed it, and as always, please let me know what you think and send me a comment. Much love xx.


	12. Before

Quinn sits on her chair, rolling a pencil back and forth across the desk with one hand and the other hand propping her chin. The desk is empty save for the map of Lima that she and Rachel had been using for their project. It’s her turn to decide where to go, and while she knows where she would exactly bring Rachel, she has her qualms about bringing Rachel there…just because.

The soft tunes of Tokio Myers’ take on Debussy’s Clair de Lune plays on as she stares absently at the empty bulletin board in front of her. Instead of picking a place to wander to, she let her mind wander instead.

Last year it had been full of pictures -- of Frannie and the places they’ve been to, of places they wanted to wander more than anywhere else, and of secret places that both of them discovered all over Lima and the nearby towns -- Forts of Solitude, it’s what Frannie had called them.

She had torn the photographs off the wall the day they buried her. She doesn’t want to look at them, because it reminds her of what could have been if Frannie had lived. The crescendo of the music washes like a war song, and somehow, it makes Quinn feel braver.

Quinn prods hard at her thoughts, and she thinks back to where it all began.

Maybe it all started when she woke up in a hospital room knowing that Frannie isn’t alive and she is, maybe for longer than that. Maybe it started when Russel left them for a younger girl. Maybe it started ever since she drew her first breath, maybe ever since her chemical make-up has screwed up when she was still being formed from bonds of hydrocarbons.

The music ends, and she doesn’t feel as brave as she did a few seconds ago and she tries not to dwell on these things. She doesn’t dwell on it, though. Dwelling on it means overthinking, and overthinking means driving her life to shit, and she doesn’t want to do that tonight.

“Quinn, let me in!” a voice followed by rapping on the window pane makes Quinn snap her head to the general direction of the sound.

Quinn lets out a string of expletives as she jumps from her seat when she sees Rachel’s head popping out of the ivy clump just beyond her window. It’s the same ivy clump that her Daddy had once planted there several summers ago -- back when he was still a good man and not some lying sack of shit.

She wonders though, if her Daddy had ever been a good man or if he had always been a lying sack of shit and it just took them a very, very long time to notice. Maybe it had to take Frannie dying for them to realize how much of a lying sack of shit Russell Fabray had been to them.

Rachel’s incessant rapping on the window pane is winning over the soft introductory notes of Rachmaninoff’s concerto, and Quinn gets up to open the window and tell Rachel to get lost. When she lifts the window up, Rachel tumbles into the light of her room -- black pants and dark black shirt and a black beanie over her head.

“What the hell, Berry?” she mutters in lieu of greeting and Rachel just gives her a toothy grin.

“Hello, Quinn.”

“Rachel, if this is about the project, then no. It’s really late and we don’t need to go outside and go look for the perfect days or whatever you want to call it because it’s almost midnight,” Quinn says with pointed glare. Rachel just shrugs and tosses her backpack on Quinn’s bed.

“This isn’t about our project, Quinn. I’ll tell you what this is about soon enough, but for now,” she hands Quinn a black shirt. “You go change. We’re going out to town.”

Quinn drops the shirt to the floor. “No.”

Rachel chuckles. “Look, I promise you’ll like this. Just go change, okay?”

Quinn warily eyes the girl’s large backpack. “What’s in the bag?”

Rachel smiles at her, eyes wide and glittering with excitement. “Something for someone who’s going to be surprised,” she pauses and tuts out her chin gallantly, like a knight who just won the joust. “Just go and change, Quinn. You’re looking at your new best friend.”

She still doesn’t budge from her spot, and Rachel’s brows knit together sharply.

“Ever heard of the term get back on the horse?” she asks Quinn, but the blonde girl just mirrors the shape of her brows and snorts out. Quinn covers her mouth, in an attempt to hide her laughter from the brunette standing toe-to-toe with her.

“I think it’s get back on the camel, Rachel.”

Rachel chuckles. “But I’m not mainstream, Quinn. I prefer to deviate,” she smiles. “Anyways, I think you should do exactly that,” Rachel shrugs, an somber expression hanging over her features like a gray cloud. In the darkness, her brown eyes swirled with emotions that Quinn couldn’t dare to pick out, lest she identify them and realize what they are.

“What are you talking about?” Quinn’s voice rises a note or two higher, her defenses creeping in.

“I know what happened to you,” Rachel says. “And I don’t know much, but all I know is that she wouldn’t want you living this way. Holed up and cut off from the world that didn’t want you to die just yet. I don’t think she wants you to be like this.”

Quinn’s own hazel eyes swirl with anger, her vision hazing and blurring into a red glaze. She angrily rounds on Rachel, lunging forwards and fisting tightly at the collar of Rachel’s black, cotton shirt. “You don’t get to tell me that, Rachel. You, of all people, don’t have the right to tell me what I should feel, or what I should do.”

Rachel is undeterred.

“I’m just saying, Quinn. I think you should do it for yourself,” Rachel sighs, her eyes still holding Quinn’s own ones, dark-brown orbs burning under hazel flames with barely controlled rage. “I know you want to grieve. But just how long can you keep on grieving? Everyone’s trying to move on. You’re not. You’re not getting any younger, Quinn. And all this angst in you is not bringing Frannie ba--”

Quinn slaps Rachel squarely on the face.

She doesn’t remember slapping her, but she knows she had slapped the brunette because her palm is stinging and Rachel’s cheek is flushed. Rachel doesn’t make a move to strike back, though. Instead, Rachel just stands there -- silent, unmoving and calm.

She breathes hard. Rachel just looks at her.

“You have no right,” she heaves. “No...right at all, to even say...my sister’s name.”

Rachel shrugs. “Maybe, you’re right. Or maybe you’re wrong,” she says. “Why don’t you get dressed so you could try and find out?”

“This isn’t a fucking game or a free-trial product, Berry. Get the hell out of my room.”

Rachel nods. “You’re right. This isn’t a game or some free-trial product,” she casts a steely glance at Quinn and sits on the trunk below Quinn’s bed. “That’s why I’m staying until you come with me. That, or you’ll have to toss me outside the window.”

“What if I’m not going? You can’t make me go with you.”

“I’ll spend the night. Here. In your room.”

Rachel is sprawled on her bedroom floor like a starfish, arms spread above her head and eyes wide open at the glow-in-the-dark stars that both Quinn and Frannie had pasted on the ceiling when they were ten. She hums a little to herself, oftentimes pausing and squinting to peruse at the barely-recognizable figures glued above her head.

“Really, Quinn?” she says as she flips herself so she’s lying on her stomach. “You didn’t take all these stuff down? Even if they don’t light up anymore?” she asks.

Quinn just glares at her from her bed before going back to the book she’s reading.

“What are you reading?”

“Othello.”

Rachel grins, brown eyes big and hopeful like an innocent child’s, but Quinn knows better than trusting Rachel’s innocent looks or her innocent school-girl facades. “You’re really not going to come with me? It’ll be fun, I promise.”

“No.”

“Fine,” Rachel pouts as she turns away and sprawls herself back on the floor. “But if you had agreed to come with me, we would have been having a good time right now and it would have been funner,” she monotones out and Quinn glares at her for the second time.

“That’s not even word,” Quinn bites back.

“What, funner?” Rachel says, feigning a hurt expression on her face. “That is so a word, Quinn.”

“Is not!”

“Is so!”

Quinn seethes out, snapping her book shut. “Alright, fine! I’m coming with you, okay? Jesus, if I come with you tonight, will you leave me the hell alone?” she groans as she lifts herself out of her bed. Rachel sits up, her face breaking into a bright smile.

“We’ll see, Quinn. We’ll see,” she hums as she bounces on her squat position on the floor.

Tonight, Rachel doesn’t drive a pink bike. Instead, she drives a black one -- something that follows her black-ninja sort of theme. Quinn steps on her own bike, and Rachel rides on hers. They wheel languidly down the road, past Quinn’s street, past a few more before they stop in front of Mike Chang’s house.

“What are we doing here, Rachel?” Quinn says, far too loud for the already-quiet neighborhood and Rachel turns back on her and shushes her.

“Quiet, Quinn. Or you’ll wake the whole town,” she says as she carefully pushes her bike into the tall hedges lying between the Chang’s house and the Sullivan’s. She motions for Quinn to follow, and Quinn reluctantly drags her bike behind the hedges.

Rachel slings the backpack over her shoulders and she motions for Quinn to follow her. They walk the remaining block until they come to McKinley’s football field. Rachel takes measured steps to the bleachers, takes a left turn and takes five more steps before coming to a small break in the wire fence.

“Get in, Quinn. This will be fun, I promise,” she tells the blonde girl. Quinn gives Rachel a horrified look, and the brunette just laughs. “Come on, you’re here anyway so you better make use of it.”

“Rachel this is public property, we could get caught and go to jail for this,” Quinn hotly argues.

Rachel just rolls her eyes. “Oh, come on, Quinn. That only applies if we get caught,” she swallows. “Do you not want to get back at Karofsky or not? Besides, you’re here with me so if I get caught, you are getting caught with me.”

“Fine,” Quinn reluctantly says. “What do you have in mind?”

“I’ll tell you when we get there, Quinn.”

Rachel leads their way -- past the football field and to the greenhouse on the farther side of the northern wing of the main building until they reach the football team’s locker room. Rachel takes a key from her pocket and opens the room.

“Finn’s a really stupid boy when you flash the slightest amount of tits in front of his face, you know?” Rachel says and Quinn just scrunches her face up in disgust because she doesn’t really need to know that.

Rachel whips out a bottle. In the faint light coming from Rachel’s flashlight, Quinn realizes it’s a bottled pink dye, the one that people sell for dyeing wool and other textile materials, and not the one that is used for hair. It’s the kind of dye that stays and does not wash away so easily. She gives Quinn a catty grin and shakes the bottle on her hand.

They walk through a few lockers until they reach a particular row. Rachel states as she punches in the locker combination. Quinn doesn’t even want to know how Rachel had managed to know about their lockers. When the locker door opens, Quinn knows that this locker belongs to David Karofsky. Rachel opens another one and she knows it’s Azimio Adam’s locker. Rachel tosses her a shampoo bottle and tells her to empty it out.

“Football practice will be at six in the morning on Monday. The boys don’t try to go home because they have a working shower here. When these these boys hit the shower come Monday morning, shit will go down in McKinley,” Rachel mutters as she fills Karofsky’s now-empty shampoo bottle with the wool dye.

It takes them at least twenty more minutes to finish. Quinn’s heart had never stopped racing, even when they had already closed the room behind them and even when the large, red roof of William McKinley High is out of view. When they pedal up to the trail that leads to the quarry, Quinn’s heart is still racing, but it’s for a different reason.

A vodka bottle is being passed back and forth between the two of them as they pass the time in the quarry. Quinn insists on not drinking because she doesn’t want to drink from the bottle, Rachel tells her it’s not half as fun as drinking from the bottle.

“That’s Orion, the famed hunter,” Rachel tells Quinn as they lie on their backs on the wooden slab that perhaps once served as a deck during the glory days of the structure. Now, it’s just a wooden slab with a few missing parts.

She traces the lithe finger pointing to the sky, where it directs her to a clump of stars halfway at the eastern sky. She tries hard to make it how in the hell it looked a lot like a man hunting for something, but Quinn just sees stars.

“I don’t see anything, Rachel,” Quinn suddenly has an inkling that she might be drunk.

“See those three stars, Quinn?”

Quinn just absently nods. Her breathes tastes of alcohol. Rachel giggles again. “Quinn, those are Orion’s Belt. Now, if you look to the nearest star there, here, you see that orange star just next to the third star in the row? That’s Betelguese. Bellatrix sits next to it, there’s Tabit, Rigel and Saiph. The three in his belt are Mintaka, Alnitak and Alnilam…”

Quinn spaces out as Rachel spouts off the other stars located in the constellation. She vaguely notices Rachel trailing off, and then bopping her on the nose. She’s drifting away, thinking about Orion.

“What’s in that head of yours, Quinn?” the brunette’s voice pulls her away.

“Huh?” she says dumbly.

“I asked what’s in that pretty head of yours,” Rachel repeats slowly, and there’s a lilt in her voice but her eyes are filled with a haunting that Quinn could not place nor point her fingertips to.

“Oh,” Quinn clears her throat. “I was just thinking about Orion. The gods hated him, you know. He’s a talented hunter, but the gods hated him. So they sent the scorpion to bite him. And now, he’s dead. The gods can be cruel.”

Rachel nods. “Hm…yeah, maybe you’re kind of right. The gods can be cruel when they want to. If they want to.”

They settle in the silence, watching the stars in the night sky. Quinn settles on counting the stars. They pass the bottle back and forth.

“Here’s a fun fact,” Rachel says after some time. “If Betelguese was in the center of our planetary system, it’s going to eat up all of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and probably Jupiter. It’ll swallow everything in this system whole.”

Quinn doesn’t answer, but she mulls over Rachel’s words.

“It’s been behaving funny recently,” Rachel says as she flips on her side to face Quinn. “It’s a dying star. Do you know what it means when a star dies? It’s an apocalypse. Everything in its system dies with it. Hell, it’s approximately six hundred to seven hundred light years away from us, for all we know, Betelguese is already dead six hundred years ago.”

“To be honest, I don’t know what to exactly make of that, Rachel.”

Rachel smiles -- not the Sparkler, but it is a smile nonetheless. “Wouldn’t it be nice to watch an apocalypse, Quinn? Even from a distance, you see something historic. You see something unravel, the Universe unraveling before you.”

Quinn stares at Rachel. She doesn’t say anything, but she feels Rachel braiding her fingers around hers and she stares as their lifelines match up each other under the pale moonlight and Quinn thinks again -- that this is the Center of the Universe.

The world had ceased to exist around them. There’s nothing but the bowl of dark sky and stars, the quarry and the quivering wind around them and their confessions, their souls laid bare with no pretenses.

She is Quinn Fabray and she is Rachel Berry and nothing else.

“We can’t do this again, Quinn. We only have this, this moment, this Center of the Universe,” Rachel tells her and Quinn gazes at the fireworks behind coffee eyes. Quinn just nods and she doesn’t argue.

The vodka bottle is in her hands, and Quinn takes in a large gulp and she coughs it all the way down. She suddenly feels really, really brave and she takes in the coffee eyes looking at her. She swallows thickly, mustering all the bravery her fragile heart could manage.

“Something else then, Rachel. Something else. We can do something else, anything. Nothing, everything,” she whispers brokenly into the night, vodka lingering in traces in her drunken breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand thank you for sticking it out with this chapter. I personally think the last portion of the chapter is one of my favorite parts to write. Do you think the same? Let me know in the comments below. Much love. xx


	13. After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another chapter my loves! I hope you enjoy!

They sit on the hood of Santana’s Jeep, smoking weed and cigarettes and drinking cheap whiskey-- well, more like Santana is the one doing all the smoking and Quinn is doing all the drinking. Santana passes her the joint but she refuses to smoke it so Santana settles for smoking the regular cigarettes instead of getting high on weed.

The air is warm, the onset of summer still thick in the air. Stars are out that night, and even in her bleary eyes, Quinn tries to identify each of the stars that Rachel had told her about before. The more she looks at the sky, the more her head spins. Her eyes scan for Betelgeuse, but she doesn’t see it and she just stops on the third try

Santana had conveniently parked them on the limestone butte on the far side of the quarry. Quinn couldn’t see the whole of the shack from where she’s standing, but she could see a portion of its tin roof jutting out of the large boulders. She could also see the mudhole right below her, a dark black mirror reflecting the stars above them.

A lot of people frequent this side of the quarry. Most of them are assholes and stoners who come to the cliff to get wasted and get high. Then, they would dare each other to jump from the boulders at the edge of the cliff and into the mudhole waters below. Tonight there’s only the two of them -- her and Santana, and she keeps daring Santana to jump to the water.

“Jesus Christ, put your goddamn shoes back on, Quinn!” Santana barks from her spot on the hood, smoke billowing in spindly threads from her lips. “No one’s jumping into the fucking mudhole, okay?”

“Santana do you see it? Do you think the water’s rising?” she slurs, her eyes going askew as she tries hard to stand on her feet properly.

Santana groans, gets up and forces her to sit. “Will you fucking sit still, Fabray? And no, the water’s not fucking rising,” she huffs angrily at the blonde girl. “The water’s not fucking rising, so shut up and drink if you want. But don’t you dare go acting weird in front of me because I’m not up for whatever weird shit you have in mind.”

Thankfully, Quinn seems to sit still after so much coaxing. Santana chugs on another bottle, it’s labels tell her that it’s some sort of Canadian whiskey and passes it to Quinn when she’s done. Quinn takes a chug, and promptly grimaces before spitting it out.

“Fuck,” she heaves out hoarsely. “Fuck, I thought that shit is good?”

Santana nods. “This is good. The Canadians just have bad taste,” she says. “Wait until we get into the shit stuff. I swapped a bottle at Mr. Kwan’s yesterday and that shit blows. You know what you need Quinn, a cigarette. Come on, Q-ball. Shit offsets shit, you know,” she says and plucks out a cigarette from her pack.

Quinn takes the offered cigarette, and touches it at the tip of Santana’s. They smoke the cigarettes in silence, watching the quiet quarry. Quinn seems to have stilled for the moment, and the two of them pass the whiskey back and forth in the silence.

“Hey...hey San! Wake the fuck up,” Quinn slurs out after some time. “Hey, isn’t that Kitty Wilde?”

“Huh?” Santana nods dumbly at her. “Where?”

Quinn points to the far edge of the mudhole, where the quarry slopes to the water. “There she is,” she says, her finger pointing the figure of the cheerleader looking into the water. “What the hell is she doing here?” she asks, more to herself than to Santana.

“The hell would I know,” Santana throws her head back and chugs into the whiskey bottle.

“Have you seen her lately?” Quinn says. “She’s always crying.”

“Is she now?”

“Yeah,” Quinn nods and she takes the bottle away from Santana’s hand. She takes a swig. “One time, I was in the park, and she’s sitting in the swings all by herself and she’s crying. I ran into her a couple of days ago, she’s also crying. When we were driving around the neighbourhood, do you remember it? Why is she crying all the time?” she asks dumbly, but Santana just shrugs and doesn’t answer.

“I don’t know fuck about Kitty Wilde, Quinn.”

She takes another swig. It’s quickly followed by another swig and another more.

Santana tries to reach for the bottle, but she leans back and takes another swig of the alcohol, refusing to hand it back to the Latina. She’s full of the burning sensation that leaves her throat after she drinks, but she doesn’t care. She doesn’t care because she doesn’t remember the last thing she and Rachel had done together. It seems like ages ago. She doesn’t care because she doesn’t see the stars shining and all she can see is the world around her, spinning and spinning and spinning.

“Fuck it, Quinn. You’re not okay,” Santana hisses through her teeth.

“I’m fine, Santana. I’m feeling terrific,” Quinn snaps at the other girl. “Jesus, will you quit that? Concern doesn’t really look good on you. My future’s as bright as it is, San. I’m right where I should be,” she closes her eyes and all she sees is the burning, the world is on fire. She’s on fire, but she feels cold.

“Seriously Quinn,” Santana’s tone softens. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m cold.”

“Quinn, stop fucking around.”

Quinn shakes her head. “No. Really, I’m fine.”

“You can’t bullshit me, Fabray. You can’t bullshit a bullshitter.”

“No,” Quinn shakes her head wildly. “No San. I’m telling the truth,” she says and she takes another swig. She’s a terrible liar. Santana doesn’t buy it and starts talking about things Quinn doesn’t hear because she doesn’t hear anything. All she does is feel and see, and all she feels is the burn -- all she sees are the stars in the darkness and when she closes her eyes, she sees the world on fire again.

She drinks and drinks until she drowns Santana out. She drowns the whole world out. Then, all that matters to her is Rachel and her in the quarry, swimming without their clothes, talking about the Universe and the stars and all that lies between each other. She remembers Rachel cupping her cheek, breaths clouding in white puffs of air. She remembers how her skin burns against Rachel’s cold, cold hands. She remembers burning, burning -- Rachel is a girl on fire.

The world is swimming and she’s swimming and Rachel is with her, telling her to swim away, to let go and just let life take her wherever it wants to. Rachel shuffles next to her, and she smiles a bit because Rachel’s too close for her liking.

“I thought you left for Pasadena,” she says at Rachel, and Rachel gives her a smile -- the Sparkler.

“I never left, Quinn.”

“Santana...Santana’s here, she’s here...with me,” she mumbles incoherently. “She’s here, oh God, did she jump off the cliff? I dared her to jump. Fuck! Fuck it. Fuck, Santana actually jumped. She jumped because they dared her to. I know that bitch couldn’t refuse a dare even if it kills her,” Quinn chuckles darkly.

Rachel throws her head back and laughs. Quinn closes her eyes and the fire behind her eyes is back. The world is swimming and burning at the same time and so is she, but Santana is beside her in a moment and she feels her blood roar against the side of her head.

“She hates you, Santana. Rachel hates you.”

Santana snorts. “Yeah no shit, Fabray, you’re drunk as fuck,” she says. “Do you want me to bring you to the hospital?”

Quinn shakes her head. “No. No hospitals.”

The whiskey tastes horrible in her mouth, and there’s a bonfire in her chest and her stomach feels sick. She takes a long, long swig and wipes her mouth with her arm. “I think we did something, Santana. I think we did something horrible. Rachel and I. Us. Rachel and me. I don’t think I can remember. But I know we did something. I don’t know what that was. I can’t remember.”

Rachel’s voice whispers in her ear. “Forget everything, Quinn. You and I. We’re invincible.”

“She’s telling me to forget everything,” Quinn cries into the air.

“Shit, Quinn. Stop talking, stop talking right now!” Santana shrieks. “Just fucking stop it!”

Quinn looks around, looking for Rachel. “She wants me to shut up,” she tells Rachel, and Rachel’s eyes burn with a fire. The brunette’s eyes darken, and she runs a hand over Quinn’s short-cropped hair. She gives Quinn a small smile, not one like the Sparkler, but the ones that Rachel gives her in secret.

“Don’t listen to Santana, Quinn. She’s a horrible, horrible person. You know that. Remember, it’s just the two of us. No one can know.”

Santana looks at her with a freaked out look. “She doesn’t want me to tell you what we did, San. She doesn’t want me to tell you because you wouldn’t understand,” she runs a palm over her hazel eyes. “Jesus, fuck. I fucked up didn’t I?”

“Quinn, hey. Hey, listen to me, okay?” Santana. “You’re here, with me. Rachel’s not here.”

Quinn’s eyes fill with tears. “No San. Rachel is here. She’s here. She never left.”

“Fuck, get away from there, Quinn!” Santana’s voice tears her away from the moment. Rachel’s voice becomes softer, softer and softer -- as if fading from the distance. “Are you insane, Quinn? What the fuck are you on? Rachel is here? As in here, as in now?”

“Yeah. She’s here.”

Quinn realizes she’s up on her feet, she’s climbing on the boulder edge of the cliff, whiskey bottle in hand and she’s looking down the mudhole. It’s dark, there’s no moon, and she looks up to see the stars swimming in the darkness. She takes a swig of the bottle before Santana knocks out of her hand.

“Jesus, Quinn. You could fall in there and die.”

“A lot of people died here.”

Santana glares at her. “Yeah no shit, come down here, Quinn.”

“No.”

Santana glares at her and she closes her eyes. She feels the world spinning, her head spinning -- everything spinning out of control. She feels like she wants to vomit, but she could just yet. The burning behind her eyelids comes back, and she doesn’t stop it this time. She takes a step forward, and she feels herself falling and falling.

She opens her eyes just in time to see the stars shining above her. They’re swimming, swimming like her vision. She should be swimming in the water. She’s falling, falling -- and then she remembers. She remembers swimming in the quarry, she remembers Rachel smiling at her, she remembers Rachel’s hair in the water that night. She remembers it flowing like gold.

Then she realizes it. She’s still falling, and she’s falling in the different direction.

Quinn wakes up in a hospital bed. Unlike before, she doesn’t have a hundred wires pushed through her, just an IV needle stuck to the back of her palm. Santana is curled up on the couch with Brittany. She remembers Santana wearing the same clothes the day she brought her out of the house.

Judy sits on the side of her bed, upper body slumped forward and face pressed into her hipbone. She moves her head from side to side, and her movement wakes Judy up. She looks old -- older than she had been when her father left her, older than she had been when Frannie died.

“Hey,” she whispers, and Quinn finds it in herself to answer, but she couldn’t find her voice. It’s then that she realizes that her mouth tastes like talc and her lips feel chappy. Her throat doesn’t feel on fire like before, but it feels so scratchy.

Santana stirs from the couch, waking Brittany with her. “Hey there, Q-ball,” she smiles. Her eyes look bloodshot, like she hadn’t had any sort of proper sleep in days. Brittany skips towards her, and gives her a kiss on the forehead.

“How do you feel, Quinn?” she asks.

“Tired,” Quinn replies, but it comes out as a hoarse wheeze. “What happened?”

“You were heavily intoxicated,” her mother replies. “You and Santana got drunk and you almost fell off the cliff by the quarry. Santana called Brittany and she drove the both of you here. Then, Brittany called me and here we are.”

Quinn sighs. “Oh. Did...was...was Rachel here?”

It’s Santana that answers for her. “Rachel’s not here, Quinn.”

It clicks then. “Oh yeah, right. Pasadena. Internship. Sorry,” she says. “I always forget it. Damn. I’m sorry I forgot again,” Quinn whispers. Judy runs a hand on her hair and gently rubs her forehead in the process. She looks sad, and worried and she looks like she hates herself.

“You have nothing to apologize for, Quinnie. Nothing to apologize, okay?” she says, but it’s hard to hear because she’s trying not to sob. “If anything, it’s me that has to apologize. Not you. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Quinn shakes her head. “No Mom,” she insists. “I think we did something. I think I did something. I don’t know. I think something that Rachel told me to do,” she says. “I don’t know. She told me. I think I was starting to remember. Back in the quarry.”

Her mother swallows thickly. “About that one, honey. Um, I think we have something to talk about. Something really important, Quinn.”

Santana nods, as if she’s getting the idea and volunteers to get everyone some snacks. Brittany offers to go with her, and the two teenage girls skip towards the door. Judy sits in silence next to Quinn on the bed, her eyes never leaving her daughter’s face.

“I think it’s time we should see someone, Quinn.”

Quinn’s head snaps up to her mother. “What are you talking about?”

Judy sighs. “Santana’s dad, well, uh...he says there’s someone he knows. He’s friends with him, and he’s a doctor. He might be able to help us. To help you,” she says hesitantly. She twiddles with Quinn’s blankets, jittery fingers grazing through the fabric as if they want to be anywhere but here at that exact moment.

“I don’t need any help, Mom.”

“But Dr. Sharpe can help you remember, Quinn. Stuff, about the party, about Rachel...” her mother trails off, and her fingers are back on their jittery dance on the bedsheet dance floor. “I want what’s best for you, Quinn. I don’t know how long you have to go through this alone. You have to talk to someone.”

“Mom,” she tries to sit up. “Mom, look. I know what you’re thinking. But we can’t afford to have another doctor looking at me. We can’t pay for that kind of expense. We’re not exactly well-off to pay for all of these stuff,” she gestures around the room.

“I know,” her mother nods sadly. “But we need you to get better, Quinn.”

“I will get better.”

“You will,” Judy says softly. “You will get better. But not if you’re alone and not if you do this all the time. You will get better if we talk with Dr. Sharpe about it.”

“And you think Dr. Sharpe could help me with that?”

Judy nods slowly, and Quinn sighs. “Okay,” she slowly nods her head. “Okay. I’ll try and see him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this chapter. Please let me know what you think about this chapter in the comments below! xx


	14. Before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another Before chapter. I hope you like it. As per usual, I don't own anything. Enjoy!

Monday morning comes faster than Quinn had anticipated and there’s a rumor going around the school that Karofksy’s hair has turned pink. Azimio’s has turned green. The two jocks are often the brunt of the rumor-joking mill amongst the nerds and the losers, and Quinn feels like she’s a hero for doing it with Rachel.

She doesn’t say anything, though. If she did, Azimio and Karofsky would probably tear her to pieces, or the entire popular kids’ population would kill her while the whole school watches her demise. So, when she passes Rachel by the main doors of McKinley, she braves herself to look into the brunette’s eyes and they hold each other’s gazes for a while before Finn Hudson’s constipated face comes into view behind Rachel’s shoulders and glowers at her.

She just ducks her head and bows low so she’s invisible again, but she feels Rachel’s eyes boring holes through her back and she couldn’t stop herself from grinning. Even when Tiffany Greenfield, a freshman Cheerio who had miraculously made it to the varsity team that year, trips her in the halls, she’s still grinning. She looks at the laughing crowd around her, and she stands to give them a bow. Then, she picks her books up and gives Tiffany a gentleman’s salute.

Quinn skips down the hall as students watch her with weirded-out eyes. Quinn turns around the corner, just in time for her to catch Rachel’s eyes as she turns down the next aisle. She gives Rachel a pained smile, and that’s all that matters to her -- because she could see the pain in Rachel’s eyes, too.

She waits the remaining minutes in Mr. Roth’s class. There are no students in the room just yet, and this is her favorite time. No one’s there to bother her or ask her how she’s doing or even talk to her. She stares at the empty chalkboard in front of her and she thinks about the time last year when she threw the dissecting pan at the board because she wanted to. Karofsky always tells everyone she’s trying to hit him, but that’s a lie.

“Hey.”

Quinn looks up and she sees Rachel standing by the door, face full of trepidation. She nods at Rachel in lieu of greeting and the other girl seats herself on the chair next to hers. Rachel smiles, albeit to herself and Quinn feels her heart racing.

“Did you see them?” she asks.

Quinn chuckles. “I’ve seen Karofsky. Not Azimio.”

“You should have. He’s green as fuck,” Rachel grits out and Quinn elicits a sound akin to gasping.

“I thought Rachel Berry doesn’t curse,” she says.

“There are many things many people think about me, Quinn. And they’re all...wrong,” she whispers the last part closely to Quinn’s ear and it makes her breath catch. Quinn tries to shake it off, but Rachel just giggles beside her.

Quinn shrugs. “Well, who would’ve thought?” she smiles. The room is quiet, and their giggles are the only thing that indents the quietness of the room. The bell rings, and they both exchange a smile. Rachel starts to stand from the chair and starts to transfer to her usual chair.

“Quinn, we should do the project this Saturday,” she says.

Quinn knows Rachel isn’t trying to be impatient, but the days are dwindling away. She gives Rachel a nod and a smile. “Okay. Okay. We should,” she assures her. “It’s my turn to decide. I’ll...I’ll just give you the map tomorrow, is that okay for you?”

“That’s good, Quinn! Is after class okay for you to meet up?”

The Sparkler is back, and Quinn feels herself get a warm, fuzzy feeling starting in her chest. It’s fluttering, and it feels good. She nods her head shyly towards Rachel’s general direction and she finds herself toying with the frazzled edges of her shirt.

She walks up to Rachel the next day, hands trembling as she holds the folded paper by her side. Finn is slinging his arm over Rachel’s lithe frame as they sit in the popular kid’s spot in the courtyard, and Rachel’s doe eyes are filled with an impatience that Quinn knows so much -- it’s her incessant need of wanting to get out of a situation.

She bravely walks up to the group of jocks and cheerleaders, and it only takes her two steps before Kitty Wilde -- head cheerleader and captain of the Cheerios, looks at her with a snotty gaze and she flounders like a fish right out of water.

“What do you want, Fabfreak?” Kitty says in an impatient tone.

“Quinn!” Rachel shrieks exuberantly before the blonde could answer the cheerleader, and Rachel immediately takes off from her spot next to Finn. The tall boy just scrunches his brow, looking dumb as ever as Rachel leads Quinn aside to talk.

She hands Rachel the map, and the brunette peruses the paper in her hands. “Old Elijah’s ranch?” she questions, waving the crumpled paper towards Quinn’s face.

Quinn shoves her trembling fingers deeper into her pockets. “I...my sister and I...we used to go there during the summer. Used to ride our bikes to the end of the Burke’s property and climb off Elijah’s fence. It’s...it’s a bit of a long ways away, but my sister....my sister and I...” she trails off, because she feels the tears threatening to fall from her eyes and Finn Hudson is gawking at them. She feels warm hands and she sees tan fingers on her arms and it makes her burn.

“It’s okay, Quinn. We’ll go there,” she says with a smile -- not the Sparkler, nothing like the Sparkler. It’s the kind of smile that barely curves Rachel’s lips but it reaches past her eyes and it makes Quinn feel fuzzy and safe and _understood._

“Okay,” Quinn nods. “Okay.”

Rachel smiles at her. “I’ll see you on Saturday morning,” she says in lieu of a goodbye as she walks away from Quinn. She goes back to Finn, and he gives Quinn a smug smirk. Quinn doesn’t mind though. Instead, she smiles at Finn and he looks creeped out.

She bravely walks up to Rachel Berry to say hello to the brunette on Friday morning. Rachel is bent over on her locker, probably trying to get her textbooks for the day when she tells her softly how her morning had been. Rachel’s reaction is instantaneous.

“Hi Quinn!” Rachel beams at her.

“Uh…hi, I…I just want to confirm if tomorrow’s a good schedule for the project?” Quinn mutters out, suddenly finding her shoes the most interesting thing in the room. She scuffles them on the linoleum, and she hears Rachel affirming.

She looks at the brunette. The Sparkler is back, and it lights the whole place. But before either of them could say anything more, Finn swoops in like an ugly buzzard and he drapes his big, fat arms over Rachel’s small shoulders. It sours the whole mood and the Sparkler is no longer there.

“Quinn,” he nods in that condescending way of his that makes Quinn feel like punching walls again. Regretfully though, Quinn just swallows the burning in her chest and lets it settle in the pit of her stomach as she limply waves at Rachel.

“I’ll see you in class, Rachel.”

“See you around, Quinn,” Finn answers for Rachel and the burning feeling rears its ugly head back in Quinn’s throat again. It takes every ounce in Quinn’s body to stop herself from turning around and marching up right to Finn so she could punch him in the face.

She blindly turns around corners until she runs into Bobby Denver. Her whole body rattles as she collides with the football player’s massive chest. Denver feels like timber, and he looks like one as well, and he looks down on her as she fumbles on the floor for her books.

“Watch where you’re going, freak!” he sneers, and Quinn finds it hard to contain herself. He’s looking at her the way Finn stares at her -- the way almost everyone in this school looks at her. The red haze comes at her like the wind and in a heartbeat, she finds herself blindly clawing at Denver.

“Bitch!” he squints his beady eyes and he squeals like a pig, and then he throws a punch at her. It connects with her jaw, and it feels like the hinges of her face had just gotten torn off. She flies across the linoleum, and she feels strong hands holding her up.

“Dude, what the fuck?” it’s Puck, concern written all over her face. He looks tired, but then he’s marching right up to Denver and a fistfight between them erupts. The kids in the hall immediately whip out their phones to record the fight.

About a minute later, Mr. Schuester and Mr. Roth is there to break the fight up. Puck and Denver gets sent to the principal’s office, and by extension and because she’s practically involved in the fight, so does Quinn. As the three of them are escorted by their teachers to Principal Figgins, Quinn catches Rachel’s eyes in the crowd.

They’re wide, and oh-so brown -- with worry and sadness written all across their dark irises.

She closes her eyes and bends her head so she doesn’t have to see them.

She gets detention for the afternoon that day. Denver doesn’t and Puck does. It takes everything in her not to claw at Figgin’s face for being such a spineless little wimp who has no ounce of courage in him to spare and hand the proverbial stick to the footballers.

The detention is not actually much, just a thirty-minute lecture on good behavior, avoiding physical violence and proper anger management. In reality, she just sits in the room for ten minutes or so before Mrs. Mortensen falls asleep on her desk. Then, she and Puck both sneak out of the detention room.

It kind of bums her when she doesn’t see Rachel’s bike parked next to hers, but she couldn’t expect any less of the brunette. She starts to walk to her house though, and though it’s an unusual event, she doesn’t bat an eyelid when she sees Rachel sitting on their front porch.

“Hey,” Rachel greets her as she walks up to the flagstone walkway.

She nods at Rachel. “Why are you here?” she asks and for a moment, she suspects she could see a trace of disappointment when Rachel’s face slightly falls. It had come out harsher than intended, so she tries to salvage what she could with her words. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way, but shouldn’t you be somewhere else?”

Rachel’s eyes light up, albeit only slightly. For a moment Quinn is glad, but she doesn’t want to settle on the thought about why her face fell in the first place. It’s a dangerous territory and Quinn doesn’t want to overthink because it just makes matters worse.

“I want to check on you, Quinn.”

The familiar bubble of red sizzles inside her, and it must have shown in her face because Rachel looks like she had just realized she said the wrong words. Rachel backtracks, and tells her that she’s just generally concerned at how her day had gone.

She doesn’t say anything.

“Look,” Rachel finally sighs in defeat. “I saw what Denver had done to you. It’s not fair.”

She snorts. “It might have escaped your notice but life isn’t.”

Rachel smiles at her. Not the Sparkler, but a smile nonetheless. “Well yes,” she says almost amicably. “But, you see…we can change that,” she raises a brow and Quinn grins at her. The familiar, wicked glint in Rachel’s dark eyes is back, and it brings a breathless heart race for Quinn.

“What do you have in mind?” she asks Rachel, and the brunette just throws her head back and stares at the darkening sky. Then, Rachel looks at her with grave seriousness before ticking her right on the tip of her nose.

“You’ll see soon, Quinn. I’m also here to tell you I’ll be back to fetch you tonight.”

“How long are we supposed to sit here?” Quinn hisses from underneath the bushes. They’re hidden behind the tall hedgerow between the alley and Denver’s two-story house. It’s almost past eleven in the night, but the house is still lit, and neither of them really wants to risk being seen, so they’re staying behind the hedge.

“Just wait, Quinn. They’ll turn the lights off soon enough. Just calm yourself, okay?” Rachel hurriedly whispers back at her. The house sits in front of them, lights on and someone walks up to the kitchen window. They don’t see who it is, but it’s a woman. The two of them recedes back into the shelter of the shadows. “Wait. And be silent.”

Quinn nods absently, even though she knows Rachel isn’t probably looking at her. The black cloth over her face feels scratchy, and she couldn’t help but feel that what they’re doing is highly illegal and they’re probably serve time if they’re caught. The aerosol can feels cold on her palm, and she sets it down the ground so she could rub her hands together.

“Stop making noises,” Rachel admonishes her and her hands still against each other.

It’s around fifteen minutes later when they see the last light go off in the Denver’s house. The only light that’s remaining is the one that they have on their backyard. Rachel ducks slightly and disappears under the hedge. Quinn follows the other girl and the two of them crawl their way past the yard and into the back porch.

It’s darker now, so they don’t have a hard time walking towards Denver’s Ford, which sits parked on the gravel driveway. Rachel kneels on the passenger’s side, and picks out a lock pick from the back pocket of her pants. She turns to Quinn and smiles.

“Go look out for me, Q-ball. And don’t make noises,” she says as she inserts the lock pick into the hole where the key should be.

It’s about ten minutes before Quinn hears the car lock click. Rachel lets out a small squeal of victory before opening the door ajar. Then, she takes out something in her backpack -- packs upon packs of tampons and the biggest bag of Kotex sanitary pads Quinn has ever seen in her entire life. She waves it victoriously at Quinn’s face.

“Oh God. Rachel -- just ugh…ew,” Quinn mutters helplessly. “Will you stop waving that?”

“What’s wrong? Only boys feel uncomfortable with these things around.”

Rachel takes the red aerosol can from Quinn’s hand and sprays it all over Denver’s dashboard. Then, she sprays it around the whole car. She tosses Quinn the tampons and throws the Kotex pads onto his dashboard, making sure that she had peeled off the adhesive tapes underneath them. She stuck one right onto Denver’s steering wheel. Rachel artfully puts red paint on the sanitary pads.

“Do your work, Quinn. Work, work, work. Dig, dig, dig…” Rachel haughtily says as she puts the pads one by one all over the windows, the seats, the gearshift -- on every possible surface. Quinn complies, and it takes them almost fifteen minutes to finish. Then, they streak the remaining red paint on the inside surfaces of Denver’s car.

When they’re done, Rachel meticulously admires their handiwork, and she turns to Quinn. “We did good today, Q-ball,” she whispers almost reverently as she slings an arm over Quinn’s shoulders and squeezes gently. Rachel had to reach up due to the height difference, but Quinn feels like they’re both a thousand feet tall. Then, the Sparkler is back. Quinn couldn’t help but smile back.

“We are so dead, Rachel.”

“If we get caught,” Rachel answers. She shrugs. “Eh, but we don’t get caught,” she says.

Rachel pulls the black mask over her face once again, and Quinn follows suit. They close the car door and they walk back to the hedge. The house sits still, oblivious to the things both girls had done not too long ago. For a moment, the two of them spy on the house, but then, nothing stirs from inside it and they force themselves to walk away.

“Do you want to walk?” Rachel asks her after a long spiel of silence.

“We’re walking, Rachel.”

Rachel chuckles. It sounds muffled against the fabric of her black mask, but it still makes Quinn feel like it’s golden and it’s a summer afternoon. “What I mean is…Quinn, would you like to walk with me?” she asks -- almost shyly.

Quinn’s head snaps to the brunette. They stop walking, and they’re in the middle of the empty road. Rachel rocks on the balls of her heels and now, Quinn is sure that Rachel is being shy and she’s hesitant. Rachel shoves her fists into the pockets of her black jackets.

“Where to?” Quinn asks, and the Sparkler is back.

They walk on without words, their shoulders brushing against each other. The air had dropped relatively down to a couple of degrees, and the air around them feels chilled and icy. They walk past the houses with meticulously-trimmed lawns -- the Pierce household, the Lopez residence, past Mr. Schuester’s apartment complex.

They make a left turn for the road that leads to the cemetery and Rachel leads them right past the graves. For a while, Quinn feels jittery. She still remembers where they had lowered Frannie, although she doesn’t tell Rachel that. Then, they reach the road where it forks back to the park and to bridge leading to the woodland. Just beyond the woods is a small lagoon and just past the lagoon is the abandoned quarry.

They walk past all that and they reach the quarry in an hour -- the whole place is a world full of white mountains shining in the moonlight. Quinn sucks in a breath as she overlooks the whole limestone canyon from the edge of the ledge on the cliff.

“Still takes your breath?” Rachel asks coyly. Quinn could just nod.

She turns to Rachel, and she sees a smile etched into the brunette’s face. It’s bright, but it’s bright unlike the Sparkler. It’s so much, much brighter than that. It’s the same smile that Rachel has given her when she couldn’t bring herself to talk about Frannie out front with all the people around her. It’s the same smile that makes her feel warm and fuzzy and safe and comforted and understood -- and Quinn decides to call that smile the Solace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, thank you for reading this chapter! Have a good day and much love! xx


	15. After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Here is another chapter. Enjoy!
> 
> P.S. There's a little time-jump down there, I thought I oughta warn you with it. :)

Dr. Sharpe’s office smells funny. It smells like pine, even if it’s in the middle of July. She sits on one for the plush couches in the reception area, where a young, redhead receptionist sits behind the desk. The receptionist flips through her newest copy of some second-rate fashion magazine.

Debussy’s Clair de Lune is playing in the office speakers, and Quinn listens to the song closely. She remembers back to the time when she and Rachel were in a record store downtown. She remembers the way Rachel’s eyes danced when the song played.

She remembers and remembers everything that happened that day -- the coffee, the rain, the books in the record store, the vinyls they bought. She remembers everything about Rachel that day -- plaid skirt and her deer sweater. She remembers until her head hurts.

“Can you turn the music off?” Quinn says softly, but she knows her mother and the receptionist sitting behind the desk could hear her.

The flame-haired receptionist blinks at her. “There’s no music playing, ma’am,” she answers in reluctance. There’s a small tremble in her voice. Quinn’s heartbeat starts picking up. The song is still playing, over and over. She knows the song by heart because the song is important to Rachel.

Judy’s hand rests on her shoulder. “Quinn,” she says calmly, but her face is breaking in sadness. “Quinn honey, why don’t you sit down for a minute, okay? Quinn, honey, I need you to calm down,” Judy says as she guides Quinn back to the couch. The music is still playing, playing in her ears and in her veins and Quinn tries to cover her ears.

She hears Rachel humming. The pain in her head throbs.

“Mom....” she grits out painfully. “Mom, tell them to stop the music!”

She sees her mother’s eyes tear up, her mother’s hands gripping Quinn’s own painfully. Quinn feels like she’s swimming underwater.

“Quinn, look at me! Look at me, okay? Look at me,” Judy says forcefully, yanking her daughter’s face towards hers so she could look at Quinn’s hazel eyes. Unfocused and glazed eyes stare back at Judy.

“Quinn, there’s no music in here, okay?” she breathes out. “It’s all in your head. It’s all in your head, darling,” Judy pauses, her chest rising and falling with the swell of her tears. She gathers Quinn in her arms and holds her until Quinn calms down.

Not a few moments later, Dr. Sharpe himself walks out of the office. He’s younger than Quinn had thought, around forty-something with bright blue eyes and a mop of curly-brown hair. The doctor smiles at her and beckons her and her mother to go inside the office.

“So tell me, Quinn. How do you feel today?” Dr. Sharpe asks, folding his hands over his desk. It’s been her third visit here in Dr. Sharpe’s office since meeting him a week ago, and he’s doing his usual thing with her -- asking basic questions like how her day had been, what she’s planning to do, if she still hears voices speaking to her inside her head. It’s a routine Quinn had quickly picked up on. The doctor asks her the simpler questions, before proceeding to prod at her past.

“I’m good,” she replies. The doctor smiles and sits back on his chair. He always smiles. Quinn thinks she hasn’t seen Dr. Sharpe not smiling.

“How was your week?”

“Shitty,” she deadpans. “But fine, on normal circumstances,” she says. She doesn’t tell Dr. Sharpe that she could still hear Claude Debussy in her sleep or sometimes when she’s alone and she doesn’t tell him that she lies awake at night staring at the darkness either.

“All right,” Dr. Sharpe says. “Tell me about --”

“Yes, I’m fine. I feel okay. Santana and Brittany are hanging out with me, and they help me relax. Yes, I know you think they’re good friends. Yes, my friends check on me and I see them sometimes. Yes, I do a lot of stuff and don’t think about Rachel anymore. Yes, I’ve stopped drinking. Yes, I’m going to school this fall. Yes, I know where I am. Yes, I know I will be okay,” Quinn sputters lie after lie. They fall off from her lips like a waterfall.

Dr. Sharpe flounders. He’s predictable as hell. He clears his throat, sits back on his chair and closes the notebook in front of him, the one he uses to write his notes about Quinn on. He sighs, and takes of his glasses and puts them on the top of his desk.

Quinn averts her eyes from the doctor’s, and she stares at the ceiling and starts counting the nails driven into each plywood. Four plywoods, seven nails on the long side and five on the short side. A hundred-forty each plywood.

“That’s good to hear, Quinn. Do you think you might want to talk about Rachel today instead?”

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Quinn sputters. The doctor never asks her about Rachel.

Quinn sees a mass of dark hair beside her. Rachel is sitting on the armrest of her chair, her dark-brown hair splaying in twenty different directions. Rachel’s hair is grazing her fingertips and she’s careful not to touch it. Her eyes are dark, almost black -- and they burn into her own eyes.

“No,” she says softly.

Dr. Sharpe leans over his desk. “We can start with a happy memory. I’m sure you and Rachel have lots of them,” he prompts and Quinn spirals down to every memory she’s ever had with a particular brunette girl that rode on a pink bike.

“Lots,” Rachel whispers beside her. “We have so many memories together, Quinn. You and me and the skies and the stars. Us, the universe. You and me, Quinn. You and me,” her voice is low and she’s tracing lazy circles on the denim on Quinn’s left thigh.

The memories start spouting off from Rachel’s mouth. “The tree on the hill, the bridge to Paradise. Sunsets all over Allen County. Riding our bikes together. The coffee shop downtown. The record store at Columbus. The limestone quarry, Quinn. Swimming in the mudhole. Counting stars at the quarry. Making up stories when the train passes. Making up stories about the stars. Those were beautiful, beautiful nights, weren’t they, Little Lion? So many perfect days. We have so many perfect days together, Quinn.”

She breathes hard. “Stop. I need you to stop right now,” she says.

She knows she’s talking to Dr. Sharpe, but all she sees is Rachel. She doesn’t smell pine anymore, but she smells Rachel’s coconut-and-vanilla shampoo and her Burberry summer perfume. All she feels is Rachel all around her, and she smells Rachel’s chlorine-kissed skin.

She knows that Rachel isn’t there, and she knows that she’s imagining Rachel with her. Rachel is in Pasadena and she’s still in Ohio, sitting in Dr. Sharpe’s office. She repeats herself, reminds herself where she is and where Rachel is.

“I am rooted, but I flow,” she hears Rachel whisper in her ear. Rachel is quoting Virginia Woolf, and Rachel loves Virginia Woolf. Quinn feels like she’s swimming, swimming and floating away in Dr. Sharpe’s office. She keeps telling herself that, in case she forgets that she’s here, now -- in an office and not with Rachel in the limestone quarry.

Yet, she feels Rachel’s fingertips graze the fabric of her jeans and her touch are feather-like and light, but Rachel’s innocent touches are the only things that keep her rooted to the ground.

She wakes up with Santana by the foot of her bed. She furrows her brows in confusion. Why is Santana always in her house? Does she have a key? She starts to wonder to herself if ever she’s that deranged to imagine having Santana in her house all the time. Maybe she’s just imagining her -- just like she’s imagining Rachel. She starts to question what really is real.

“Your mother paid me to look after you, I told you about this Quinn. Jesus, you really screwed-up that pretty blonde head of yours, didn’t you? You busted your stupid brain,” Santana mumbles at the foot of her bed as the Latina taps furiously into her phone.

“God, did I say it that loud?” Quinn asks.

Santana looks over at her with worry. “Yes, you did,” she says. A look of worry washes over her as she sits beside Quinn’s bed. “How is it going with Dr. Sharpe?”

Quinn turns her head away so she can’t meet Santana’s eyes. Santana knows her more than anyone, and she fears that she’ll be able to see through her lying. “It’s fine,” she says. “I feel better and sleep better now. I don’t think much of what happened and I am starting to remember.”

She does. She does start remembering -- hazy silhouettes of a party, Finn screaming at her, Santana screaming at her, Rachel and her driving Finn’s car through the freeway with the windows rolled down and their hair whipping on their faces. If anything, the memories had only made things worse, having to so many thoughts in her head and not knowing what to do with them.

“Quinn, are you even listening?” Santana’s voice pops back into her head. She blinks -- once, twice, before looking up to Santana.

“I’m sorry, what were you just saying?”

“Fuck it Fabray, I swear your stupid busted head just went to someplace else,” Santana stares at her.

She suddenly wishes she could tell Santana _just where_ here head actually is. She wishes that Santana could understand, but she looks at the other girl and knows that Santana couldn’t, so she squares her shoulders and gives Santana a smile.

“Just nowhere, San. Just nowhere at all,” she says. Santana gives her a look, clearly deciding whether or not to believe her. Fortunately, Santana just doesn’t say anything and moves to her dresser, retrieving a gray box printed with graphical designs in black ink.

“I bought you that latest version of that video game you loved playing with Sam. He kinda mentioned in passing that he’s planning to buy you one when he gets his pay check at work, but I figured I could use some of my trust fund since it’s like…just a few dollars and I’ve got money to spare. Sam could put his money on more important things. The stuff that actually matters, like paying for Stevie and Stacey’s school stuff. He said he wants to play with you when you’ve got time around this weekend,” she hands Quinn the box and sits beside her on the bed.

A sad look covers her features, and Santana just sighs. “Quinn, I really wish you’d remember, you know.”

“Has Rachel called yet?” is all Quinn could ever ask.

Santana sighs the second time. “She hasn’t yet, Quinn. But you should just worry about yourself for now, Quinn. All right? Rachel would’ve wanted that,” Santana leans in to place a kiss on Quinn’s hair before getting up from the bed and leaving the room.

Quinn has learned the art of sneaking out at night, and she also learned the art of sneaking in.

The room is dark, lit only by the meager light that trickles in from the streetlamps outside. Rachel’s room is just like the same as if she never left. There’s still their map, tacked onto the corkboard, pockmarked with colored pins all over it. The room still smells heavily of coconut-vanilla shampoo and Burberry summer scent. The posters still hang from the yellow-colored walls, faces of Broadway stars that Quinn never knew staring eerily at her.

But the room feels -- empty.

She lies on the bed, flinging the covers about her and she’s flooded with everything Rachel. The scents remind her of the drunken nights they stumble in and out of this room, setting forth to do justice or just have fun because they never had enough time to do everything they wanted to do.

The next moment that she opens her eyes, it’s almost light outside and Mr. Berry is tapping her shoulders lightly. He looks worried, sad and older than he ever looked than before. Quinn scrunches her face a little, squinting against the light coming in from the windows.

“I’m...I’m sorry Mr. Berry…I know Rachel’s still in Pasadena and she’ll be back in a few months but...” she flounders like a fish out of water, immediately embarrassed that she had deliberately trespassed the Berry household. But, Mr. Berry stills her jerky, twitchy motions and smiles gently at her.

“It’s alright, Quinn. It’s alright. We understand, we miss her too, but she’s not going to be home, not until September rolls around,” Mr. Berry says softly. “Would you like to have some tea?” he offers.

Her hazel eyes roam all over the room, expecting Rachel to just bounce through the door any moment. Rachel doesn’t, and her eyes graze Mr. Berry’s lightly before falling to Rachel’s bedside table. Rachel’s favorite Funny Girl playbill sits on the table.

Her heart leaps into her throat. Rachel’s whole room just sits there -- everything, her Streisand collection and her books and the playbills and posters, all of them waiting for Rachel to come home like the way she’s waiting for Rachel to come back home, too.

“No,” she shakes her head slightly. “No sir, uh...thank you, though. But, I really have to go. Mom might be...she might be worried, looking for me. They might think I’m...I’m at the quarry again. I have to go. I need to go,” she quickly stands up from the bed, grabs her jacket and leaves out of the room.

She doesn’t stop to take a whiff out of Rachel’s room. She doesn’t stop to stare at the pictures in the walls as she hurries down the staircase and sprints down the driveway.

A few days after her trip to Rachel’s, Santana drags her out of the house and takes her all the way to BreadStix. The girl had seemed to have made it a personal mission for her to get Quinn out of the house.

“So, Puckerman’s throwing a party tomorrow,” Santana says between chews of her bread sticks and pasta.

Quinn internally grimaces at Santana’s frown as she toys with the food on her plate, but she lifts her eyes up to her friend because she had noticed Puck had been MIA since she woke up a few weeks ago. It kind of makes her feel guilty, because she just remembered that Puck isn’t there to visit her at all and she wonders just where the boy had been.

However, in hindsight, Puckerman is Puckerman and he comes and goes as he like so Quinn just shrugs it off. “I’m not coming with you to Puck’s party if that’s what you’re asking,” she tells the girl sitting across the table.

“I wasn’t asking you to come,” Santana says sourly. “I’m telling you we’re going.”

Quinn sighs. “I told you, San. I don’t want to--”

“You try and fucking finish it Fabray,” Santana waves a butter knife at her. “And I’ll gut you with this dumbass knife. You’ll see me carve out your stupid busted head out your skull with this. You’re going with us, do you understand?” Santana says scathingly.

“Britt and I will be driving with Sam so you don’t have to worry about getting there and going home. We’re fucking picking up your stupid ass at seven,” Santana continues. “And if you’re wondering what dumbass lie I’m telling your mother to cover it up, I actually told her the truth and promised her I’ll be looking after your stupid ass.”

Quinn says nothing. Santana shrugs it off, taking what she could get. That’s just how Santana is, if Quinn can only give her the quiet, then Santana will have to take the quiet. The quiet is always better than explaining. Quinn wonders if she’d tell Santana everything inside her head at the moment, the Latina would probably start running for the hills.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading through this chapter. If you liked it, if you hated it, please let me know by leaving a comment! Much love. xx


	16. Before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Here's another Before chapter. Disclaimer: Still broke, still not mine. Except for the Original Characters and the plotline. I hope you enjoy this one.
> 
> P.S. It wouldn't hurt to read this with some music, right? You can listen to Above the Clouds of Pompeii by Bear's Den when you get to that part when our favorite girls go for a ride. Enjoy! Much love from here. xx
> 
> These are the song's links:  
> YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izph1WByEDA  
> Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/76bTVg1dZB9FBdFBH0VDDv?si=Uta0wTKwQcWjTlQkaacjMg

It’s Saturday.

Quinn wakes up with Facebook posts flooding her feed.

Apparently, everyone who had been awake for at least an hour had already gotten a picture of Denver’s car pockmarked with tampons and sanitary pads. It’s all over the Internet. People are saying stuff about how funny it is, and others say that Denver doesn’t deserve to be bullied like that. Someone had started a comment thread on how much of a ‘little bitch’ Denver is.

It’s morbid, but Quinn feels -- very much, much alive.

“Quinn!” her mother screeches at her door and her body lets out an involuntary groan as she twists herself on the bed. She blocks her mother’s voice with her pillow, but she could still clearly hear her mother’s voice filtering through the door.

“Your classmate’s here!”

Her eyes immediately land on the digital clock located on her phone’s top bar. She does a double-check at the time and her pupils dilate when she realizes that it’s half past two -- thirty minutes later than she’d told Rachel to meet.

“Shit,” she mutters angrily into her pillow. When she opens the door, Judy is on the other side, impatiently waiting for her. “I’m late,” she states, and Judy just looks at her with eyes that almost told her: ‘yeah, right’ -- but Quinn doesn’t find time to glare at her mother.

She literally flies past her mother towards the bathroom and back. She grabs her things and when she opens her bedroom door once again, her mother’s not there already -- she had probably gone downstairs. Quinn runs down the stairs, two steps at a time, and she sees Rachel sitting in the living room, talking to her mother.

They’re both laughing about something that Judy had said, and Quinn clears her throat. They both turn to her and Rachel smiles at her, mouth gaping and all teeth. Judy is on the verge of tears and she immediately dreads what Judy had told Rachel.

“Hello there, Number Four.”

Immediately, Quinn’s heart drops to the ground when she hears Rachel say the words and she stares in open-mouthed horror when she sees the photograph of her in her middle-school futsal team jersey on Rachel’s hand. “Mom!” she rounds at her mother, cheeks flushed and ears reddening out of embarrassment. “Mom, why did you tell Rachel that? I can’t believe you did it!”

“I can’t believe you kicked the ball to the goalie and hit her in the face!”

“It’s funny, Quinn!”

“That was one time, Mom! And it’s ages ago! It’s middle school futsal!”

Both women in front of her laugh at her expense and Quinn feels the incessant want for the ground to open up and swallow her whole. But then, Rachel is looking at her like she’s made of gold and all she sees is Rachel, Rachel and everything Rachel and Quinn literally feels her heart leap in crazy somersaults underneath her ribcage.

Judy is oblivious to Quinn’s racing heartbeat and stands. “Alright, I’ll go and pack you something for the road, okay?” she says almost happily. There’s a light in her eyes that is flickering, fighting to stay alive when Quinn had thought life had snuffed out.

She glares at a grinning Rachel. “Don’t even think about it, Berry.”

Rachel makes a large, imaginary X mark over her heart. “Your secret is safe with me, Quinn.”

Quinn doesn’t answer. Instead, she just smiles at Rachel, puts her hands in her pockets and rocks on the balls of her feet. They’re standing awkwardly in the living room, looking at each other with flushed cheeks when Judy walks in with the carefully-wrapped sandwiches in a basket. She hands the basket to Quinn.

“You take care, okay?” she tells Quinn as she pulls the younger blonde into a quick hug. Quinn just nods at her mother and takes Rachel’s hand, dragging her out of the house.

“Come on, before my mother takes out the baby pictures,” Quinn says jokingly as she drags Rachel into the entryway. Judy follows them suit, ready to walk them out. When they step outside the house, Quinn pauses as she looks for Rachel’s bike.

“Where’s your bike?” she asks.

“You’re going to drive us there, Quinn,” Rachel says almost carefully. The sky is a whitewashed blue, lazy clouds just milling about close to the eastern horizon and she knows exactly why Quinn is hesitant to ride in the car with her.

Quinn shakes her head wildly. “No…no, I…don’t…” she trails off, her shoulders slumping dejectedly over her frame. Though Rachel is almost half a head shorter than her, at the moment, Quinn looks so small.

Rachel steps forward and clasps Quinn’s free hand. “It’s going to be okay, Quinn. We will be fine, I promise,” she says with a smile and Quinn just shakes her head.

“I’m…I’ve never driven…” she trails off, and Judy looks concerned on the porch, but Quinn shakes her head at her mother reassuringly. She turns back to Rachel, whose eyes are now intently staring at her. She feels small under the brunette’s gaze.

“I’ve…never driven since it happened, Rachel.”

“I know, Quinn. I know you’ve never driven anything except for that ratty bike,” Rachel whispers at her and it does little to calm her nerves. She’s still trembling, but she could hear the lull in Rachel’s voice and her heart slows down a bit.

“But you need to do this now, my Little Lion. You can do this now.”

Rachel holds her trembling hands. She’s warm and fuzzy and Quinn relaxes a little. Rachel slowly guides her to the driver’s seat. In the corner of her eye, Quinn sees her mother clasp her hand over her mouth and she hears her stifle a sob.

They carefully get into the car and Judy waves goodbye to them from the porch. As Quinn looks at her mother, she sees unshed tears in her mother’s eyes. Quinn puts the car in reverse, pull out of the driveway and they slowly roll to the street. She stops the car at the side of the road. 

“We’ll take it easy, Quinn. We’re going to start slow and nice and careful. Then, we’ll see how it goes from there,” Rachel reassures her as Quinn clasps her safety belt and nervously fidgets behind the steering wheel. Rachel clasps her own seatbelt and Quinn spares a glance at her mother.

When she lifts her hazel eyes to look back at the house they just left, she sees her mother crying on the front porch, a tear falling from her tired eyes and a small smile finds its way into her face. Judy smiles back, and nods at her. She feels Rachel’s hand taking hers over the console, and she hears the brunette telling her to drive.

She goes slowly -- about thirty-five an hour and Rachel smiles at her through the rear view mirror. As they turn down the street, a car behind them honks out loudly, and Quinn jumps a little. She accidentally steps on the accelerator and the speedometer jumps to forty-five.

“Asshole! You don’t own the fucking road!” Rachel Berry, child prodigy and the queen of McKinley High School -- curses at the driver that drove past them. The driver gives them a sharp look, but it doesn’t deter the small brunette. Then, Rachel flips her middle finger at the speeding vehicle ahead of them.

“Go forty, Quinn. You’ve done forty-five earlier,” Rachel says.

“Yeah, because some asshole just honked at me and I freaked out,” Quinn reminds her. “I’m not going past thirty-five, Berry.”

“No, go forty. What do we call this, Quinn? This is called getting back on the horse,” Rachel says again, and this time, Quinn just rolls her eyes and steps on the accelerator. She quirks her brow at Rachel as if asking the brunette if she’s satisfied.

“When we reach the highway, we’ll go sixty.”

Her lower lip just trembles, but when they do reach the highway towards the quarry, she follows Rachel’s suggestion and she goes up to sixty. Rachel rolls the windows down and the wind gets inside the car and their hair is all over the place.

It’s exhilarating and her blood is roaring in her ears.

She’s forgotten how it felt like to feel like she’s flying, and she tells Rachel exactly that. Rachel just grins at her and tell her that it’s a whole world she’s missing when she’s not in a car, and she just shrugs because Rachel is somehow right.

They reach the ranch in thirty minutes and Rachel immediately squeals whens she sees a cow. Quinn just chuckles at the brunette. She’s going slow -- about forty an hour so that Rachel could enjoy the view they’re passing through.

“You’ve never seen a cow?”

Rachel’s eyes clouds at her. “Of course I have, Quinn! It’s just…well, it just feels so good to be in this place…it’s beautiful and the rolling hills are so…wonderful. I’m not sure what word I should be using and I know there are animals in here, but this is just so, I don’t know, peaceful? Yeah, peaceful might be a word for it.”

“I thought you’re vegan,” Quinn chuckles. “And that you have an infinite vocabulary.”

“Well, that’s beside the point. And I did not say that I have such vocabulary,” Rachel shrugs. “But…but the place, the greenery, the pasture…everything is just so green and it’s so nice.”

That gets out a laugh from Quinn. “I’ll make sure to tip a cow on the way back, Rachel Berry.”

Rachel just laughs. Her laughter sounds like ringing bells in Quinn’s ears and Rachel’s laughter makes her ears burn. But, instead of thinking about it, Quinn focuses her mind on the road, because she doesn’t want to think about these things at all.

It scares her.

They walk past the fenced area where the cows are being kept, and Rachel keeps running her motor mouth. Quinn had learned how to tune her out within five minutes, focusing alternately on the sentences that come out of the brunette. Sometimes, she gives the brunette a slight nod of her head, pretending to listen to Rachel.

They reach a small, rising outcrop with a large oak tree on the top of it. Its leaves are spread wide, and its thick trunk is four times as wide a normal man is. Quinn immediately hurries to the tree. Rachel falls not far behind her, although she had been huffing and puffing all the while.

Both Quinn and Rachel sit themselves underneath the shade of the oak. The tree-trunk has many, many words written on the bark -- names encased and kept within a heart, teachers with curses attached to their names.

Rachel’s smile brightens at the sight of these things, and Quinn could almost hear the cogs turning inside Rachel’s head. She slowly shakes her head at Rachel, but the brunette is undeterred and she moves around their spot to find something sharp to engrave the tree trunk with.

“Rachel, you’re not allowed to do that,” Quinn calls out with a warning.

“Says who?” Rachel snorts at her. She has already started etching the letter Q on the bark of the tree, it’s fresh skin peeling off underneath the sharp stone she’s using. “We got away with trashing Denver’s car last night, Quinn. I think we can get away with this one, too.”

Quinn could only watch as Rachel’s forehead crumples in concentration. It’s almost fifteen minutes before either of them actually said another word. When Rachel had finished, she takes a step back and appraises her handiwork.

She snorts at Rachel, and the brunette just glares at her. She holds up her hands, palms up towards the brunette and laughed. “What? It’s too middle-school, Rachel! It’s funny,” she reasons out. “It’s not like I was making fun of it.”

Rachel rolls her eyes. “You certainly are,” she says. “And I wouldn’t be too hasty to say middle school is funny if I myself walked and kicked a ball into the wrong goal,” she adds and Quinn looks blatantly stumped out.

Rachel grins. “Thought so, Fabray.”

She punches Rachel’s arm lightly.

“Ow, shit that hurt!”

“You asked for it!” Quinn snaps at her, but she’s laughing. She’s laughing and she feels like she’s floating and she suddenly feels like Frannie is watching her, smiling at her. There’s no acidic wave gushing up her throat and she’s only surrounded by warmth. The afternoon sun feels warm and glowing and golden on her skin, but out of habit, she still quiets when she remembers her sister.

“What’s wrong?” Rachel asks. “It’s…it’s Frannie, isn’t it?” her voice is full of trepidation, with care that Quinn finds sincere -- unlike the way others in school cared for her, so fake and pretentious like everyone else.

Quinn swallows thickly. “I…we…my sister and I, we used to race each other to the top of the tree, you know. Frannie always won until I was thirteen. She’s fifteen then, and she’s a lot bigger and taller than I was for her age,” she starts off and she stares at Rachel, whose big, brown eyes are wide, staring at her with an intent gaze.

“You sound like you two are very close,” Rachel agrees quietly.

Quinn chuckle, and then she sighs. “I think…I think Frannie always let me win since then.”

Rachel just hums in agreement. Quinn doesn’t say anything more. They stay in the silence, watching as the clouds crawl above them lazily. A cow moos in the distance, and an even more distant train whistles. A thin, spindly tendril of smoke climbs up the horizon.

“Sometimes, I wish I could just jump on a train and escape from all this,” Quinn sighs. “You know, and when I come back, my sister is here, alive and well and waiting for me. She’d give me the biggest hug there isl and then we’ll share ice cream right out of the tub because we both know it’ll make my mother flip a switch.”

Rachel stands from her spot under the tree, and she holds out her hand to Quinn. The blonde girl raises a questioning brow at the brunette standing in front of her. Rachel gives her the Solace. “Come up, Quinn. Come up,” she says, beckoning her to climb the tree. “Come up and race me to the top.”

Quinn’s face breaks into a smile and she takes Rachel’s hand. Rachel’s laughter rides with the wind as the two of them scramble to get to the highest branches of the tree.

Quinn wins the race.

Of course, it’s because she’s so much taller than Rachel -- and Rachel has really, really short arms. And of course, Rachel argues with her about winning. Quinn feels the need to argue with Rachel and defend her victory.

“It’s not like it’s a level playing field, Quinn!”

Quinn rolls her eyes and fake-glares at Rachel. “Of course it is, Rachel! You just don’t know how to climb trees.”

“That’s beside the point!” Rachel whines, waving her arms at Quinn frantically. “I’m at a disadvantage! Look at my arms and my legs!”

“It’s not like I was trying!” Quinn counters back, and then she realizes how silly they sound -- then she smiles at Rachel and steps down a branch. “Fine, you win, you insistent toad,” she groans out, but she’s smiling and Rachel is smiling back at her. Rachel holds her hand out to Quinn and helps her up to her own branch.

They’re sitting on the highest branch that could support their weight, their legs dangling dangerously several feet above the ground. The rolling hills covered in grass stretch ahead of them -- golden with dry grass against the golden afternoon sun. In the distance, another incoming train whistles, its black smoke snaking up into the sky.

“Pretend it’s the train from New York,” Rachel says out of the blue.

“What?”

“Pretend it’s the train from New York or somewhere far, like California or New Haven or wherever,” the brunette clarifies. “Pretend you’re riding in it and Frannie is alive and she’s here, under this tree, waiting for you to come. What would you say to her when you first see her?”

Quinn swallows. “I don’t know Rachel,” she sighs. “I don’t know what to say.”

They’re quiet for a moment, Quinn does not know what to say and Rachel is waiting for Quinn to say anything. The wind picks up, the smoke is now fading. The sun casts long, lengthened golden shadows against the tall grass below them. The tree’s leaves seem to whisper against themselves. They start climbing down from their perch on the tree and they sit underneath the oak. They share the sandwiches Judy had made for them.

“I guess I’d tell her I love her,” Quinn mutters as she stares into her sandwich. “I didn’t get to tell her that when she…left. She left so suddenly. We…we were laughing and singing to the car music and then there’s broken glass all over and my head is throbbing in pain and there’s so much…so much blood. God, there’s so much blood and there’s hair in my mouth and there’s a ringing in my ears and…and she’s…gone,” she chokes on her last word -- because in her head, it sounds so final and so real and it feels like Frannie is so, so gone and so dead.

She doesn’t realize she’s crying and shaking all over until she feels Rachel’s arms holding her up and she’s leaning into the much smaller brunette underneath the tree with snot flowing from her nose and her eyes stinging from the tears and her cheeks burning from crying.

Rachel is quiet.

“Quinn,” Rachel whispers against blonde hair and the blonde cradled in Rachel’s arms hums. “I think…I think Frannie would tell you she loves you, too.”

Rachel has said it so quietly with so much certainty and when Quinn looks up to search Rachel’s gaze, all she sees are tears in those coffee-brown eyes. Rachel leans her forehead against Quinn’s, and they sigh into each other, an unsaid ‘thank you’ passing between both girls.

There’s a long, pregnant pause between the two of them. The wind breezes past the leaves, and the leaves whisper inaudibly again. The moment is gone and Frannie is once again an unsaid memory wedged between Quinn’s past and present.

“Do you have your camera with you?” Rachel asks, gesturing to Quinn’s backpack. Quinn nods and immediately fumbles for the zipper of her bag, and she takes out her trusty Nikon and hands it to Rachel. The brunette shakes her head.

“That’s your thing, Quinn. Go do it,” she says. “You can take a picture of that hill over there, just where the sun makes it golden. Come on, let’s go.”

Quinn nods and adjusts her camera. Then, she takes shots of the hill, of the tree, of Rachel’s silhouette beside her. She takes several shots of the golden fields beyond them. Surprisingly, Rachel stays quiet the whole time.

When she’s done taking the pictures, they climb the tree again. This time, they don’t race. She shares the remaining sandwiches with Rachel. They share the thermos of lemonade Rachel had brought with her. The two of them are quiet, but they’re not uncomfortable with the silence.

“I’m glad your mother made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches instead of bacon, otherwise we would have been spending the whole afternoon scraping off sandwich dressing and bacon from my bread,” Rachel says as she takes her second sandwich.

Quinn just hums in agreement.

“This day is close to perfect,” Rachel says somberly after sometime.

Quinn turns to Rachel. “Yeah?” she nods without really looking at Rachel.She knows that Rachel’s motor mouth is at work again. The clouds drift silently by. There’s another comfortable silence settling between them.

“Yeah,” Rachel says.

“This isn’t much,” Quinn says. “It’s just an ordinary oak tree, Rachel. On top of a hill that’s probably as ordinary as any hill could be. In a town that could be any other town in Ohio.”

“But I’m sitting here, on this ordinary tree, on top of this ordinary hill in this ordinary town in Ohio -- and I am sitting here, sharing ordinary sandwiches with a very, very special and a very pretty girl,” Rachel smiles, and she bumps her shoulders with Quinn.

Quinn turns to Rachel and all she sees are all the shades of brown all wrapped up in one -- dark, coffee eyes staring at her.

“Quinn Fabray, I think this day is close to perfect,” Rachel declares again, her voice dropping an octave in a reverent whisper as she leans forward to tap Quinn’s nose with her index finger. She gives her the Solace, and Quinn feels like she’s floating again, but now, she’s not just floating -- she’s flowing like gold, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's another chapter for you, my soft babies! I hope you have enjoyed and please, please leave a comment below and let me know what you think because comments and words of affirmation are our love language here. Much love. xx


	17. After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Here's another chapter. Just a disclaimer, I don't own anything and all that. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Fair warning to all: this chapter is a bit heavy. Some scenes/portions of the story may or may not be triggering factors, especially for violence (both language and scene).

Puck throws his summer party on a Saturday night. Santana forces her out of the house to go with her and Brittany. Judy practically pushes her out the door. She knows she really shouldn’t be reading into those things, but it’s almost like everyone in her life wants her to go and have fun -- which she isn’t having anyway because Rachel is not with her.

It’s always been Rachel.

However, the fact that Puck had been MIA since she woke up sort of makes her want to go, so she decides to go with her friends. The three of them had to squeeze themselves in the backseat of Sam’s gigantic truck because Mike and Tina had already called dibs on the front seat.

There are a lot of people in Puck’s house -- the crowd is thicker than usual and Quinn wonders if there’s a nasty batch of uppers roaming around because the people seem crazier than usual. She tells herself not to accept drinks from strangers or from Puck.

A lot of people in Puck’s party either went or are going to McKinley, which means, a lot of people know Quinn and a lot of people whom Quinn knows. It also means that she gets people looking at her, because Crazy Quinn Fabray isn’t one to go to parties, but then again, she’s friends with Puckerman, so people don’t say shit about her, at least not right smack into her face.

Once Sam parks his truck, Santana makes a beeline to the kitchen where Puck keeps all the alcohol flowing and comes back with an unlabeled bottle and several solo cups stacked against each other. She settles them up on a table and they immediately start doing shots.

Some of the Lima Heights kids pour into the living room, looking drunker than most people. Quinn finally confirms her suspicion -- if Lima kids are in a party, chances are there’s a nasty batch of drugs circling around.

Puck spots her when everyone else is on the makeshift dance floor in the backyard. She’s hanging by the stone benches on Mrs. Puckerman’s koi pond, which is probably now filled with STD strains but Lima’s sweltering heat is killing her and she needs a quiet spot to nurse her drink with.

It’s Puck that sees her first. He’s talking to some girls from that private school on the other side of the town, offering them brownies that she’s definitely sure are laced with pot. He saunters towards her and gives her a tight clasp on the shoulders. Then, he offers her a hunk of brownie. She punches him for it and he grins at her widely.

“Jesus, Q-ball. Still learning to live?” he says.

“Fuck you, Piggerman,” she glowers. “Where have you been the whole time?”

A soft expression crawls over his face, only to be marred by another impish grin breaking out of his lips and he makes cooing sounds, as if Quinn is a toddler. “Did my baby Q-ball miss the Puckzilla?” he flexes his biceps right in front of her, and she punches him the gut for the second time. Puckerman groans, and Quinn thinks she may have gutted him really hard, but then Puckerman is laughing at her.

“Ow fuck, you’re still an ass, Quinn. Still a fucking ass,” he glares at her, rubbing the imaginary bruise on his abdomen. “I’ve been around, Q-ball. Are you fucking happy now?”

Quinn smiles at him. “Yes, thank you very much,” she rolls her eyes. Someone else calls Puck’s attention and he gives her an apologetic shrug before leaving her to attend to the kid calling him.

She goes back to her quiet spot by the pond, which is not-so quiet anymore because Santana has Brittany pressed up against the far wall opposite of the stone bench. It’s obscured by the tall hedge, but from the string of dirty-sounding Spanish fluttering in hurried, throaty whispers in the cold air, she’s sure that it’s Santana and Brittany. No one else in Lima talks dirty Spanish like that except for Santana.

She tries hard to tune out the sounds coming behind the hedge. Santana and Brittany are whispering to each other, and the whispers are often lost among the sounds of what seemed to be dogs lapping and slurping from a food bowl.

Two minutes later, Quinn feels the incessant, itching need to leave the pond.

She decides to go to the bathroom take a piss, and on the way into the bathroom, Kitty Wilde bumps into her. The blonde girl stares at her with wide and terrified eyes, like she had just seen a ghost in front of her. She hurries away from Quinn, disappearing into the multitude of gyrating bodies in the yard.

She stands there, watching the trail Kitty had left, not knowing what to make of it.

Quinn sees Finn lumbering through the crowd, trying to catch Kitty’s eyes from across the room. His tall form is lumbering and unsteady, his drunken gait feeling awfully out of place in the mass of bodies around them. He sees her, and a dark look passes across his brown eyes and he turns towards her, momentarily forgetting the blonde cheerleader. For a moment, Quinn debates whether she’d run or not, but before she could decide, Finn is already on her.

She feels his large hands gripping painfully at her arms.

“What the hell did you do, you little shit?” he bellows out, and Quinn tries hard not to grimace at the smell of alcohol and corn dog in his breath. “What the fuck did you and Rachel do, huh? The police won’t leave me alone because of you! What the fuck did you do that night?”

His hands are coiled tight around her shoulders, and his fingers are digging into her skin. She’s certain that it’s going to bruise. She’s about to open her mouth when she feels herself falling to the ground and there’s beer in her nose. She splutters angrily, but she has a hard time getting up from the floor. The next moment, Finn is towering over her with his large fists raised high just above her head.

“I’m gonna fucking make you pay, you little shit!”

She feels the hinges of her jaw fall off from her cheek before she sees a blur of black swiftly passing her by. When she opens her eyes again, Finn is being tackled by Puck on the ground. For a lumbering teen, Finn is quick on his feet, and he lands a punch on Puck’s right temple. Puck crumples on the ground, but not before Quinn manages to kick Finn on his shins, sending the taller boy sprawling to the earth next to Puck. Finn glares at her, ready to strike back, but Puck is fast enough to punch Finn right on the nose. He coughs out blood, sputtering angry curses as he tries to help himself up.

The fight would have lasted longer, but some of the guys from McKinley’s football team break it up.

“I’m going to make sure you go back to juvie for this, you son of a bitch!” a bloody Finn yells as he’s being led away by Sam and another jock from the football team. “I’m going to put you back in there and you’re never going to get out of there, I’m gonna make sure of that! You’re going to regret punching me for the rest of your life!”

“Yeah, I’d like to see you try, asshole!” Puck shoots back angrily. “Go run to your mommy, you little bitch!”

While Finn is being dragged away, Puck gives her a worried frown, his warm, calloused hands running over her face. Her lip is split, a thin trickle of blood trailing on her chin. Puck runs his finger over her lips gently, wiping the blood away from them. “Your lip’s busted, Q-ball.”

Quinn pokes her tongue out and hisses in pain when she hits the wound. “Damn,” she curses. “You okay, man?” she asks. Puck just nods, and she remembers the threat Finn had thrown at him earlier. “What did he mean when he said he’s going to send you back to juvie, Puck?”

Puck shrugs. “Nothing, Q-ball. Don’t you worry about it.”

Quinn snorts. “Yeah no shit, Puckerman. I know you when you’re lying and when you’re trying to cover up a stupid lie because I know you,” she says pointedly at him.. “Where have you been this summer? And don’t tell me no shit because I’ll fucking know.”

Puck sighs. “Fine,” he says. “I got into a fight in a club in Cincinnati, and I got caught driving a car that’s not mine when I tried to bail out of the shit that went south. So I had to spend juvie for a couple of weeks for the damages. I didn’t tell you ‘cause I don’t know if you’d totally flip or congratulate me the moment you’d know about it. And even if I had wanted to tell you, I couldn’t have because I was still stuck in Belleville when you woke up,” he mutters sullenly at Quinn.

Quinn gently runs a gentle hand over Puckerman’s shoulder. “It doesn’t matter now, Puck. I’m just glad you’re home.”

A grin breaks in Puck’s face. “I knew you totally missed me,” he says. Quinn slaps the back of his head and he hisses in pain. He growls at her, but his smile still shines in his face and Quinn feels lighter than she had in a long time.

“You’re really a bitch, do you know that?” he says at her before walking away.

Quinn stares at his retreating back, feeling the heaviness come back to her, clothing her like a lead blanket. She knows Puck is lying about the whole thing happening in Cincinnati. She knows this because she exactly knows Puck like the back of her hand. Finn’s questions hangs like an anchor in her mind: **What the fuck did they do that night?**

It’s drizzling a little when she gets out of the house. The air is chilled, and she could smell pine in the air. It dangerously reminds her of that night when she’s standing on that bridge a few months ago, ready to jump into the water and Rachel was there.

Rachel has always been there.

Quinn rounds the back of the house and down the basement where she had kept her bike. The air bites her when she whizzes down the street, past her own lawn and then past Brittany’s house a couple of blocks over. She rounds past Santana’s, past Rachel’s -- and she lets herself slow down as she drives past the girl’s house. It’s dark, and eerily haunting.

She braves herself and drives all the way to Mike Chang’s house, past the hedges, and to McKinley’s football field. She counts five steps from the first peg of the wire fence, and she finds the hole in the fence. She ducks underneath it, and soon enough she’s making her way across the school grounds.

The whole school smells stuffy -- the stale air inside the hallways and in the rooms feel as if they’ve been sealed for years even if it was just for a few weeks. Her footsteps are muffled, their thudding seemingly empty. The darkness around her isn’t as haunting as the darkness in her house, and her legs find their way to the Arts wing of the main building. She picks the lock on the darkroom door, a skill Rachel had taught her. It had felt so long ago.

The darkroom is still redolent of ink and photograph paper. Photographs hung from strings, long-dried and some of them overexposed. She stares at the pictures dangling from the drying wires -- of her and Rachel, and of countless memories and moments trapped within a piece of paper. Her fingertips yearn to go back in time, but they couldn’t, and they involuntarily reach for the photographs strewn on the rack. They feel cold and smooth in her fingers, and she lets out the air she doesn’t know she’s holding. She notices a neat stack of craft paper on the side of the table, and a glossy paper catches her eye.

It’s a brochure of some sort, and she realizes it’s one of those fancy travel brochures at the ticket office that they include once you book a plane. She picks it up and the documents stuffed inside the glossy brochure falls away.

Her eyes squint in the dark to read them, but she knows exactly what they are.

A round trip economy plane ticket to Pasadena and back.

It’s dated on the second Monday of June -- the exact same date Rachel should have left for Pasadena -- exactly two days after the party at Karofsky’s. She’d be a moron if she could not recognize the same plane ticket she’s bought for Rachel as a present. She’d been so proud that Rachel got the internship back in December that when she had the chance to save up for the ticket, she jumped at the opportunity.

She lets go of the ticket as if it’s burning her, as if it’s on fire. She doesn’t want to assume the worst, but her mind is racing, racing, racing.

_A million miles an hour._

She stumbles backwards, and she catches herself at the edge of the table. She accidentally snags the rack, and a flurry of photographs rains on her. The ink spills, and the black sludge coats everything. She stares in horror at the plane ticket, her thoughts rushing at lightning-speed, yet one question swims clear in her mind.

**If Rachel’s tickets to Pasadena are here, then where the fuck is Rachel the whole time?**

Then, Quinn starts running. To where, she doesn’t know.

She finds herself leaning over the mudhole again, looking into the dark, black, murky water below her -- wondering what it would be like to fall and reach the bottom of it and never make it to the surface. The bottle in her hand had been emptied for a while, and she zigzags across the ledge to get to the trunk of her car. She had kept a healthy amount of vodka and tequila underneath the hood because lately, all she ever needed was alcohol and a few moments with a bottle.

The wind is whipping on her face, the cold summer air is biting against her cheeks. She realizes that the quarry had never felt this cold.

Quinn trips on her feet, the bottle slipping from her fingertips and shattering somewhere near her. There’s a sting on her left palm, and when she holds it close to her face, there’s a red gash snaking over the length of her palm and blood is already trickling into the water.

She gets the water into her mouth, and she coughs it out -- and then all she could see is Rachel, just Rachel and everything Rachel. The water in the mudhole is rising, the apocalypse is happening, they’re all ending like what Rachel had always told her. Rachel’s voice is in her ears whispering sweet nothings she could never remember.

It’s Santana and Brittany that find her a few hours later. The two girls pull her out of the water. When she sputters what it feels like an entire ocean out of her mouth, Santana punches her in the face. Brittany looks at them with wide, terrified eyes -- but she doesn’t try and stop Santana.

“You’ve really fucked up that stupid busted head of yours that you’re going to fucking kill yourself, aren’t you?” Santana hisses out angrily at her. “You’re not going to give a damn about yourself, are you? No, not about yourself, or Judy, or me and Britt or Puck or Sam. You won’t even fucking give two shits about anyone else because you’re going to fucking kill yourself.”

She snarls at Santana for punching her, and she throws a punch back, catching Santana in the side of her head and sending the Latina reeling back from the impact. Brittany catches her girlfriend before she could fall to the ground, and she puts a restraining hand across Santana’s arm.

“That’s enough, San. That’s enough,” Brittany tells her, and Santana immediately calms down once Brittany’s hands find their purchase around Santana’s trembling hands.

Quinn just curls into a ball on the dusty ground, silent sobs shaking through her entire body, as if an earthquake is happening inside her. Santana straightens herself up, her upper lip already split and bleeding. A shiner is already showing underneath her left eye. The Latina takes Quinn’s hand and guides her towards the Jeep, but she just shakes her head at Santana and cries. She keeps whispering Rachel’s name, over and over again. The memories wash over her like the way the water trickles down her blonde hair.

_Rachel’s hair in the water. Rachel sinking, deeper and deeper into the darkness. The water rising._

“Quinn,” Santana almost screeches. “Quinn, stop! Okay? Just fucking stop saying Rachel’s name over and over!”

Quinn looks up at Santana, and then she looks at Brittany. They’re both crying, and she knows exactly why they’re crying. She stares emptily into Santana’s dark-brown eyes, and she meets the Latina’s brave gaze with her own.

“What happened to Rachel, Santana?”

Santana just shakes her head. Brittany swallows hard. There’s nothing but the silence. There’s everything but the silence.

Quinn swallows thickly, because it feels like the air inside her lungs had been sucked out of the words she’s about to say to her friends. “Because I think remember now, San. I remember her. **The two of us. Here.** ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand, glad to know you have finished this chapter! I admit this one has been very taxing. Thank you for reading and holding on with this one. Much love. xx


	18. Before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! First of all, I would like to apologize for the untimely update. I know that this is a chapter long overdue. I have lost the flash drive where I usually store my stuff in. I hope you guys have still enjoy reading this one!

Quinn is driving them home. It’s already dark, and her fingertips still tremble at the feel of the steering wheel underneath her palm -- the way the car steers whenever she moves it, it feels foreign to her. Rachel is there with her all the way, though.

She haltingly pulls up in front of their house, slightly stepping on the brake pad too hard that they jolted forward a bit. She looks apologetically at Rachel, but Rachel just shrugs and tells her it’s okay. Judy is waiting for them by the door.

Rachel opens the passenger seat and Quinn follows suit. The two of them walk the flagstone pathway towards the porch. They stand in a comfortable silence on the porch, and Rachel hands Quinn the basket that they brought with them.

“You’re not going to come in?” Quinn says by way of offering.

Rachel shakes her head. “It’s already late. Finn’s asking me to go with him for dinner, so I guess I have to run if I want to make myself look presentable. Say hello to your mother for me, though.”

Quinn nods in understanding. “I’ll see you…see you when I see you, then?”

The Sparkler is back. “Sure, Quinn. I’ll see you at school. On Monday.”

Rachel ducks her head shyly, and Quinn steps into the house. Her mother had left her some baked potato and stuffed pepper for dinner, and she microwaves the food to heat it. She eats in the silence, relishing in the comfort it gave.

She tucks herself in that night and for the first time in a long time, Quinn doesn’t count the glow-in-the-dark stars that no longer glowed until she could drift to sleep.

The week comes by faster than she expects and it surprises her how it could come so fast, and while it had been refreshing to see Rachel again, seeing Finn hanging off of Rachel’s shoulder like she’s something that’s his property makes Quinn want to hurl punches at his face.

Today, Rachel gives her a covert smile down the hallways, but Finn stares at her with a condescending look that makes her shrivel in the inside and makes her walk twice as fast than she normally does. She reaches Mr. Roth’s classroom faster than she had intended to.

She sits there, waiting for the others to fill in the seats around the room. When Rachel walks in -- hand in hand with Finn, she doesn’t expect her to sit beside her. However, Finn moves to the back row -- where the jocks usually sit, and Rachel sits beside her.

“I saw that,” Rachel whispers at her through clenched teeth. Mr. Roth had just came in, and he had started spouting off about Death of a Salesman in front of the class. Two columns beside her, Santana is playing footsie with Brittany, and Puck is falling asleep two chairs behind.

She looks around, and sees that most of them aren’t paying attention to the lecture.

“What?” she turns her head wildly at Rachel, but the brunette kicks her under the desk.

“Stop moving your head around, Quinn. Mr. Roth’s going to notice,” Rachel hisses at her. “He’s going to send us both to detention,” she says and Quinn snaps her head in attention to Mr. Roth’s face. Suzy Pepper is sort of reciting out front, but she barely notices anything happening beside her.

“Come with me to the quarry tonight?” Rachel asks softly.

Quinn’s heart skips a beat, and it takes everything in her to stop herself from doing a giddy dance on top of her desk. She smiles at Rachel, and she nods. Rachel grins back, and turns her attention back to their wheezing teacher.

Puck is making lewd comments about how Santana eats her hot dog during lunch time and it takes more than a slap on his shoulders to quiet him up. Three tables across, Quinn watches Rachel, who is smiling at her with an amused smile.

“Quinn, are you even listening?” Santana asks her, face stuffed with mustard sauce. “Jesus, you’re even more screwed-up than we thought you to be.”

Quinn just blinks, and tries her hardest to turn her attention to her friends. “What?”

“My parents are out of town on Saturday night, do you want to come over?” Santana says.

She internally shuffles through her brain and wonders if Rachel had asked her to do something on Saturday night, and then she nods at Santana. “Okay,” she says. “But I might be a little late because I’m going out with Rachel on Saturday afternoon.”

“What, you’re dating her now?” Santana asks and both Puckerman and Brittany’s jaws are on the floor. Quinn momentarily feels the heat creeping up her neck and onto her cheeks, but she wildly shakes her head at her friends.

“It’s just for Mr. Roth’s English project,” she counters, and she feels the tension in the air immediately relax. Santana just snorts.

“Me and Britts are making a photo essay about her life in the ballet company,” Santana tells her. “What about you and Berry, Quinn? What’s your journal about?”

Quinn shrugs, now that she’s about to say it out loud, it suddenly sounds so stupid that she can’t even convince herself to broach the topic. “Uh, we…we haven’t decided yet,” she says and Santana’s brows shoot to her hairline.

“Not that I’m being this nerd, Quinn, but the end of the term’s just a few weeks away,” she points out. “Winter break’s going to come soon and just a few more months after that. Mr. Roth wants to look at our progress before the winter break comes.”

“I know,” Quinn sighs. “Rachel and I are trying to figure out our best interests.”

“Eh, you shouldn’t worry about that,” Puck says casually as he leans back on his spot opposite them. “Artie and I haven’t done anything yet. It’s not like we’re going to fail English because of that.”

Santana grimaces at him. “Roth will fail you for midterms if you don’t turn your progress report in, you idiot.”

“Same thing,” Puck shrugs.

“It’s because you don’t have anything to do after we graduate, isn’t it?” Santana points out.

“I have a pool-cleaning business,” he says.

“That’s not going to feed you and your Ma all the time, Puckerman. That’s not a fucking plan to get out of here,” she counters.

Puck rounds on Santana. “I have my guitar,” he says, a dark cloud of foreboding passing over his chestnut eyes as he leans on the table to get closer to Santana.

“Listen to me, Santana,” he continues, his voice taking on a dangerous tone. The vein on his neck bulges. “I’m not like you or Britt or even Quinn here. Britt can get into any fucking university because she’s a fucking genius. You have your Pa with a high-paying job and even Quinn here gets a trust fund from her shitty Dad,” he says. His eyes are now glazed with dark anger, and Quinn wonders just how far Santana had pushed him. 

“I don’t have a future, no scholarship, no trust funds and no fucking asshole rich Dad. I know that. The only way I could get out of this town is my music and my pool-cleaning business. I’m not even sure if I can graduate. If I do, it’s good. If I don’t make it, it’s okay. I don’t care. Besides, it’s not like it matters anyway.”

Santana stares at Puck with a stony expression, but Quinn notes the slight tremble on her hands that are resting above the linoleum tabletop. His equally hard gaze at the Latina doesn’t waver either. “You’re a moron, Puckerman,” she finally says after a few seconds.

Puck just leaves their lunch table wordlessly and heads to the football field.

“You’re an asshole, Santana,” Quinn deadpans and Santana glares at her lunch for the rest of the lunch period.

Quinn skips her AP Biology so she could spend some time with Puck. When the lunch bell rings, she doesn’t go to her designated room and instead heads to the football field. She knows that Puck is spending the afternoon underneath the bleachers near the boiler room, so she makes her way to the said direction immediately. She spots Puck leaning on the rickety sofa that some of the senior stoners had brought in eons ago.

“You’re to give me a fucking talk, too?” Puck asks her in lieu of a greeting. He’s smoking a joint and his eyes are already bleary.

“Are you high, Puckerman?” Quinn asks instead of answering.

“Depends,” Puck shrugs. “Are you a cop?” he grins at her and hands her the joint. Quinn takes it between her fingers, and she takes a long, slow drag. Puck slaps her shoulders gently in congratulation. “That’s one good girl,” he almost slurs out.

The two of them sit on the battered couch. They don’t talk and the afternoon sun beats on the football field intensely. Puck is humming quietly to himself and Quinn squats on the lower end of the couch. Puck keeps on smoking his joint, occasionally handing it to Quinn to let her take a drag.

When the joint is almost half an inch short and the world is swimming in Quinn’s eyes, when she finally plucks the courage to speak to Puck about it. She purses her lips in thought, and when Puck asks her what’s wrong with her, she worries her bottom lip before answering him.

“Santana’s a bitch,” is all she says at him and she hears him sigh.

“She’s right you know,” he says, almost quietly -- his voice filled with resignation. “I mean, I wasn’t angry at Santana for being the bitch who throws the shit to the fan, but she’s right and it stings a bit to hear her say that because it’s true.”

She turns to Puck. There’s moisture in his eyes but it could have been his sweat because the afternoon is sweltering even if it’s autumn. “Still, there’s no telling if that’s going to actually happen. Like, what is it that brainy people say? That no one knows the future and shit like that, yeah. You weren’t called the Puckerman for fuck’s sakes, Puckerman.”

Puck just shrugs. “You’re right, too. But that ain’t mean she ain’t right ‘s well.”

“Your going to get out of this town, Puckerman. You and me and Britt and Santana -- we’re going to fucking leave this stupid town behind and we’re going to have the shit show of the world, you’ll see,” Quinn says with a harsh finality in her voice, and Puck chuckles at her.

“That’s right, Q-ball…I mean, we all want to get out of Lima,” he says as he stands from the couch, sending a flurry of age-old dust. Quinn coughs a little, and Puck dusts his pants. “But we don’t always get what we want, so there’s that.”

Puck leaves her under the bleachers as he saunters off to the parking lot, probably to skip school all throughout the afternoon. Quinn watches as Puck’s back retreats from her, and she’s struck with a thought. Puckerman might be talking about his future, but it seems to her that he’s talking about her and Rachel, too.

Quinn comes back to school for seventh and eighth period, because she’s sure that Mr. Walters would give her so much shit about skipping on today’s lesson. Her head is still swimming, but at least she could focus on not being a stoned ghost and she actually comprehends on whatever people are telling her. She walks to her locker to get her books when she spots Santana hanging by her locker.

“Where is he?” she asks immediately once she’s within earshot. “I know you both skipped class.”

“I don’t know,” she shrugs at her friend, and it’s the truth. “We hung out earlier, but he’s gone and he’s probably in the next town over. You really had to fuck things up for everyone, don’t you?” Quinn narrows her eyes at the other girl, and she knows she’s brewing a war with the Latina, but she doesn’t back down from Santana

“I’m trying to help him realize he needs to sort his shit out,” Santana says defensively. “So I am so sorry for trying to make him into a better man.”

“Not everyone’s life is your damn business, Santana.”

Santana snorts. “Yeah right, that’s just rich, Quinn. And why are you even siding with him?”

Quinn shakes her head as she finally takes out her Chemistry textbook. “I am not siding with Puck, San…or anyone of you for that matter. I just don’t want you doing that.”

“Doing what, exactly?”

“Getting into people’s faces,” Quinn replies. “I know you’re going to college, probably where Brittany wants to go, but that doesn’t make you entitled to make opinions about people’s lives. Just because you’re going out of this town next year doesn’t mean you can just tell Puck to do something for himself, it’s his life decision to make, not yours.”

“I really am sorry for caring about my friends, Fabray. Truly, I really am,” Santana mockingly says at her and she just shakes her head at Quinn. The Latina glares back at her. “Don’t you fucking try and push my buttons, Quinn. You know how I fucking work.”

Santana turns around just in time for one of the cheerleaders to hurl the frozen Big Gulp at her face. The dark-haired girl lets out a yelp of surprise, and the whole hall erupts in laughter. Quinn recognizes the cheerleader who threw the drink at Santana. It’s Veronica Aldridge, one of the very few freshmen to make the varsity team for the school year.

“You’re getting wet, Santana. Why don’t you do something about it?” she almost says haughtily, and Quinn doesn’t even feel it coming, but she’s barraged by the acidic feeling of the black sludge shooting up her throat. She might be brewing a war with her oldest friend, but Santana is Santana and she’s her friend regardless of the rift between them at the moment so she stands behind Santana, mouth closing and opening like a fish out of water, and she practically feels Santana coiling like a spring.

“I’m going to do something about it, alright. It starts with my fist stuck on your face, you bitch!” Santana hollers at Veronica, lunging at the cheerleader and managing to put a punch or two before some jocks break up the catfight.

Veronica snarls at Santana, her nose a bloody mess.

Rachel’s not there to hold her back, so she quickly lunges at the cheerleader. She’s pretty sure that she had managed to rake some of Veronica’s skin before she flings her hardbound textbook at Veronica’s nose. Matt Rutherford tears her away from the fuming cheerleader before she could punch Veronica on the face who’s already cradling her bloody, broken nose.

“Say what now, bitch?” Quinn snarls at Veronica. “Say that word again, bitch and let`s see what happens next to your fucking face!” she says as she glowers at the cheerleader.

“You’re a fucking psycho, Fabray!” the cheerleader screeches, and she’s about to pounce on Quinn but Shannon Beiste, McKinley’s football coach, is yelling at them to stop. The kids scamper off because it’s Beiste and the lady doesn’t take shit from anyone -- cheerleader or not.

“Fabray, Lopez, Aldridge...” she says brazenly and Quinn lets out a relieved sigh when Coach Beiste tells the three of them to stay. “March up to the good principal’s office now, young ladies. Let’s see how Principal Figgins take to his lady students behaving in such an unladylike manner!”

Shoulder to shoulder like the brave soldiers they are, Santana and Quinn march behind Veronica and Coach Beiste, and when they come to the office, the principal isn’t there and Coach Sylvester is reclining on the sofa. Coach Beiste fumes at the sight of the coach of the cheer squad and Coach Sylvester looks up to them.

“Hello Shannon, I think you’ve been misdirected,” she says, twirling on the principal’s swivel chair. She gives the cheerleader next to Shannon a once-over, and she snorts.

“The cheering squad is right about that way,” she points to the football field where the cheerleaders are practicing their routine. Veronica just gives them a cocky smirk and raises a perfectly sculpted brow.

“I’m here for Principal Figgins,” Coach Beiste monotones, and Quinn could tell that the teacher is none too happy to see the coach. She reminds herself to silently thank the heavens for sending someone like Coach Beiste in McKinley.

However, the victory is short-lived as Coach Sylvester stands from her spot on the couch and puts her hands on her hips. “Go back to your pyramid,” she says, completely ignoring Coach Beiste sputtering complaints. Veronica just smirks at the two of them and heads out to the field, leaving them with the two teachers.

“Not so fast, Aldridge,” Coach Beiste says sternly just as Veronica is about to step out of the room. Her imposing stature had just made her more commanding that she already is, and even Coach Sylvester pales in comparison to the authority Coach Beiste displays. The cheer coach opens her mouth to argue, but the older, much stockier football coach beats her to it.

“Your upright cheerleader is seen by many of the student body exchanging fists with these other two,” she motions towards them, and Veronica glares at everyone in the room, particularly to Quinn.

Quinn glares back.

“Well, if that’s not violence in your books, Susan, then I don’t know what is. It seems that, as a teacher and as a person who has authority, I have the right to impose detention on these girls, however, I wanted to see Principal Figgins to inform him of the current situations at hand,” Coach Beiste continues.

“You’re detaining my cheerleader?” Coach Sylvester asks incredulously and she stares at both Quinn and Santana from head to foot, scrutinizing them both with harsh, judgmental eyes. “With these whatever these are…these two?”

Coach Beiste gives the coach a slow nod. “Well, it seems as though I am,” she says.

“Well, I am afraid you have to reason with Principal Figgins about that,” Coach Sylvester says. “You see, he’s in Cleveland picking up a fat check, courtesy of my cheerleading squad. I guess he’d be happy to hear that my cheerleader has been detained for trouble she did not start,” she says.

Before Coach Beiste could answer, Coach Sylvester barks at Veronica to return to the cheer pyramid even though she’s just a feet away from the coach. She gives Quinn and Santana a parting glare, and skips down the hall and into the field.

Quinn and Santana spend detention with Mrs. Mortensen in silence, but the woman lets them go thirty minutes before the hour ends. She knows that the teacher is trying to make things seem easier with them, but she can’t help but feel that the woman just pities them.

As they head out to the parking lot, she spots Brittany waiting for Santana by Santana’s Jeep. Brittany opens the door for her, and Quinn feels a momentary sting of jealousy for her friends. Santana offers her a ride, but she declines, opting to walk by herself.

When she gets out of the school gates, she sees Rachel Berry, pink bike leaning over the bike rack, pink helmet in hand and the Sparkler in place. She pushes herself off the wall where she’s leaning, and she walks towards Quinn.

“Hey,” she says. “I heard you got detention.”

“Aldridge called Santana a dyke,” Quinn grits out. “I had to step in.”

“Had to or wanted to?” Rachel shrugs at her and smiles. Quinn shrugs back. “Yeah that’s what I thought, Quinn. Don’t worry, though. We’ll get back at her later,” Rachel assures her, and it’s enough to let the warmth bubble in the pit of Quinn’s stomach again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we have another chapter done! Thank you for staying with this story by far. Stay tuned for more updates!


	19. After

“Quinn, Quinn, are you there? Are you with me?”

She feels arms shaking her -- they’re hasty and rough and panicked. It’s Santana’s. She knows this because she’s known Santana her whole life. Santana’s getting her to open her eyes and wake up, but she doesn’t remember falling asleep.

“Do you hear me? Jesus, Quinn, wake the fuck up.”

She hears voices. When she moves her head around, she hears someone sigh. When she opens her eyes, she sees a familiar orange light. She’s seen that lamp before, she just couldn’t remember. She hears someone clearing their throat. The light starts to spin, and everything follows to spin, and her whole world seems to wobble.

“Can I go to sleep now?” she asks, and she feels like someone had stuck cotton balls into her mouth. She vaguely remembers going swimming before falling into whatever-this-kind-of-limbo she is in right now.

She doesn’t hear the answer.

**Rachel Berry is dead.**

Quinn lies on the back of Santana’s car. She thinks that this must have been how it felt when you know a star dies in a supernova. She tightly fists the cloth draped over her body, and she cranes her head as much as she’s able to.

“San? San…” she calls out. “Oh fuck, Santana. Oh God, fuck.”

Santana appears beside her. “Quinn, I’m here. It’s…it’s fine. It’s gonna be fine, we’re going to the hospital. We’re waiting for the ambulance because you’re passing in and out of consciousness and Papa’s still on duty. You hit your head, Quinn. It’s going to be fine.”

“Santana,” she heaves. “Rachel. Rachel…the party.”

“Quinn, I need you to keep quiet,” Santana says. “Quit moving your head so much. We’re going to talk about the party later, at the hospital. We’re going to get you there, Quinn. I promise, it’s going to be okay.”

She tries to sit up and she notices milk-white arms holding her back, trying to get her to lie back on the backseat again. Brittany’s face appears opposite of Santana’s, and the blonde girl gives her a small smile. She insists on sitting up, and Brittany pushes harder back to the seat.

“Quit moving,” Santana says forcefully this time. This eventually makes her stop.

“Rachel…she drowned, didn’t she?” she asks, almost hollowly. “Oh God, they think I killed her, don’t they? Oh God, San. Rachel…she died. She drowned, I remember you telling me about it. She’s not in Pasadena, is she?”

“Who the fuck told you she’s in Pasadena?” Santana asks. “Jesus, you really fucked up that brain of yours, Quinn.”

“I remember now,” Quinn says. “I remember you…you kept on telling me about it.”

“I kept telling you she didn't make it, but you kept insisting that I told you she's in fucking Pasadena,” Santana says. “Just take it easy, Quinn.”

“But I remember the party, too. You…Britt…by the pool. Rachel’s there, too. And Finn is screaming at me, too. We’re fighting. I don’t remember why, but we’re fighting. And I drove Rachel to the mudhole. Oh God, I killed her…I killed her, didn’t I? I think I did, but I think she wanted to die, too. She told me that…I don’t know. What if I just imagined it and I killed her?”

“Quinn, don’t--” it’s Brittany that tells her this time because Santana’s looking so pissed at her.

“No Britt, I remember Rachel driving Finn’s car. We keyed the shit out of his Rover and we drove it down the freeway. Jesus, I killed her. I killed her…” Quinn trails off. “But I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t hurt Rachel. Jesus, fuck. But what if I did? What if…did I?”

**“ _Quinn, shut your fucking mouth._ ” **

The stern voice alone is enough to silence Quinn. It’s the first time in her whole life that she’s ever heard Brittany curse. Santana’s hands still over the bandage on her head, and the Latina’s dark eyes flit dangerously between the two blondes. She opens her mouth, as if about to say something, but then she thinks better of it.

She tries hard to remember anything else other than Rachel’s hair in the water. She fails to do so. Santana’s back at bandaging the cut above her left eye and Brittany’s rubbing her arm with her hands. The wind howls outside Santana’s Jeep and there are sirens approaching and she remembers that she’s here -- and Rachel’s not.

Forgetting is easy, and she settles for it.

Quinn gets an alcohol prohibition order from court. Because she hasn’t done any damages to anyone or any property, she’s let off easy and the court just mandates her to have more sessions with Dr. Sharpe. Santana drives her for her session with Dr. Sharpe. It’s a warm Saturday afternoon, and a lot of people are hanging out to enjoy the sun. She watches as kids toss a Frisbee back and forth.

“Quinn,” Santana starts to say as they pull up in front of Dr. Sharpe’s clinic. Lately, she’s been doing that -- like she wants to start a conversation but she doesn’t know how to. Quinn pivots her body in such a way so she’s facing her friend, and she stares at Santana. The Latina doesn’t say anything. Santana motions for her to get out of the car, and together, they walk hand in hand into Dr. Sharpe’s office.

The receptionist nods courteously at the both of them as they step inside the pine-smelling room. Unlike before, Quinn notes that there’s no music playing. Santana sits on one of the chairs with the plush upholstery at the corner of the room and grabs a copy of Psychology Today underneath the coffee table. She sits beside Santana and leans her head on the Latina’s shoulders, trying to get some sleep even though she’s not drowsy.

After about ten minutes, the receptionist calls them in. Santana tells her that she’d wait for her outside the office, and Quinn feels thankful that Santana is letting her have her privacy. The good doctor is sitting behind his desk, with an easy smile on his face.

“Hello, Quinn. Have a seat,” he offers and Quinn gives her a small smile.

Quinn had almost got it down to a science already. He asks her how she is, she lies right in front of him and he asks her to talk about Rachel. Sometimes, she really talks about Rachel, like the way her hair shines or how they often skipped class just to get to that record store in downtown Lima or how many times they’ve sneaked out at night to exercise their vendetta over high school jerks and bitches or how many times they’ve sneaked into the quarry just to count the stars above their heads.

Those are when she has better days. On some days, she doesn’t talk to Dr. Sharpe at all.

Today’s no different...and it’s not. She starts to notice. He’s sitting there with his hands clasped in front of him and he’s trying to assess her mood for the day. Finally, after about fifteen seconds of sitting in silence, he asks her how she’s doing.

“I feel well, Dr. Sharpe.”

She distinctly monotones it out, because she doesn’t want to talk about Rachel today. Instead, Dr. Sharpe flexes his arms over the teakwood desk and stares at her. “Your mother tells me that you’ve started to remember about what happened.”

She grimaces inwardly. “It still doesn’t make sense in my head.”

“Still,” Dr. Sharpe leans back on his chair. His eyeglasses perch on his nose, and are slightly skewed to an odd angle. “Now that you’ve started to remember, you’re one step closer to healing, Quinn. You can make peace with the…things that happened.”

Quinn lets out a snort. Like that’s going to happen. This isn’t the first time she’s tried to push something completely out of her mind and had managed to forget it. She stares right into Dr. Sharpe’s gray-blue eyes and he looks a bit puzzled, but he doesn’t look away from her either.

“When Frannie died, I couldn’t remember most of it. I mostly stayed in the hospital, and most of the time, I was asleep. They keep asking me what happened, and I remember the car careening off into the highway. But I don’t remember anything after that. Then I just…I guess it’s a little while later that I remember her frantic face. I keep forgetting, you know.”

She pauses -- and lets herself take a deep breath. The doctor blinks his eyes at her and he flexes his fingers above the teakwood desk. “Do you wish to say something about Rachel, Quinn? Another of those happy memories, perhaps?” he asks, and Quinn just shrugs, because now, she doesn’t hear Rachel inside her head.

Her sight zeroes in on the painting behind Dr. Sharpe. It’s an abstract one, filled with sunset colors -- droplets of blazing reds and golden oranges, tangerines and a hundred shades of yellow and gold overlapping against each other.

“Dr. Sharpe,” Quinn calls the man, and the doctor’s attention snaps to her. His bright-blue eyes look at her with rapt attention. Quinn sighs, words spilling out of her mouth without her consent. “What happens when the sun stops shining?” she asks.

For a moment, the doctor looks really overwhelmed, like he doesn’t know whether he’d take Quinn’s questions seriously or not. However, he sighs and picks up his tablet. He logs into Google and types Quinn’s question into the browser’s search engine. He flips the tablet to Quinn, and he shows Quinn the birth and death of a star.

“A star has a life, Quinn. It starts as a white dwarf and ends into a black hole or into another nebula or white dwarf,” Dr. Sharpe hesitantly says. Quinn’s hazel eyes blink blankly at him, and for a moment there’s a terse silence between them.

“Once upon a time, Rachel brought me to the quarry and she told me about the stars,” Quinn says shakily. “She tells me that the bluish-white stars are the hottest ones and the red ones are the coldest…probably some three thousand to five thousand degrees on its surface…no more than thirty or forty times the heat of boiling water. So, we sat there, looking at them -- Betelgeuse and Sirius and Rigel and Fomalhaut. We talk about our own Sun. She loves making up stories about them, you know.”

Dr. Sharpe tucks his pen into the pocket of his coat and stares at Quinn, not really knowing what to do with his patient. “That…that must be some happy memory, Quinn.”

“It…it’s hard to say,” Quinn mutters. “So one night, I asked her this question…what if the Sun refuses to shine and what happens then? You know what she told me? She told me that people believed that once, that the Sun would stop shining and it would be the apocalypse. She had many theories about the apocalypse.”

Dr. Sharpe doesn’t say anything.

“So, Rachel whispers to me, just like that -- that the apocalypse will happen once the Sun will refuse to shine. Plants will die, there will be a considerable drop in the Earth’s surface temperature, the plants will die first…then animals will follow. Decomposers will come last. Eventually, everything in Earth will die,” Quinn chokes.

She clearly remembers that night. Veronica Aldridge had called Santana a dyke in the hallways earlier that day so they put nuts all over her car because she’s allergic to nuts. Veronica had broken out in hives and had been out of school for several days after that. Then, they took off to the quarry and stared at the star-filled skies until their eyes grew heavy.

“And you know something else? All of these…all these things, they don’t really matter. The apocalypse…everything. And I know that now, because stars…they consume everything. They burn. And burn they did, and they burn out. Rachel is a star, you know. In every essence of the word. She wants everything too much -- wants to be in Broadway and famous. Wants to get into a decent Astronomy course for college before hitting Broadway. She always asked me what if there’s everything in the stars. Maybe that’s why she took the internship in Pasadena.”

“And you wish that Rachel could’ve done all of these with you?”

She doesn’t answer, because how could she answer that kind of question? Her answer wouldn’t even matter because Rachel is gone and she doesn’t even completely remember all the things that happened when Rachel had left.

“I guess,” she shrugs instead. “I never really got to asking her. You see, Rachel and I never talked…much. We don’t talk much in school, except for our project and all that. But at nights, in the quarry, we always get to ask these things, but I don’t know. I never got to ask.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess, that’s just what we are,” Quinn mutters. “I guess that’s just how Rachel and I work. It was easier that way. We’re…we’re not exactly on speaking terms at school. I’m not supposed to talk to her and she’s not supposed to talk to me.”

“Why, Quinn?”

“I don’t know. I guess that’s just how things are at McKinley. It was easier that way.”

Dr. Sharpe sighs and takes notes on his notebook again. Quinn sits in front of him, in silence. She watches as Dr. Sharpe’s pen flies across the pages. Then, he closes it and he turns to Quinn. He tells her that she should keep a journal, like the one that she did with Rachel for Mr. Roth’s project. Only that she has to write whatever it is that she remembers about Rachel from now on. Quinn nods her head in agreement, and Dr. Sharpe lets her go after that.

Later that night Quinn starts her journal. She stares at the writings glaring at her. Underneath the incandescent light of her desktop lamp, she squints as she reads her journal entry. Her heart is racing, trying to make sense of everything. Her doctor tells her that she’s supposed not to force herself to remember, but she can’t. She can’t help but feel she’s missing something.

_Finn screaming._

_Santana screaming. She punched me._

_Rachel screaming at Finn to stop. Stop what?_

_Puck punching Finn._

_Kitty screaming._

_I’m screaming._

_Bottle breaks. Vodka? Beer? Coke?_

_Kitty screaming._

_Brittany screams for everyone to stop. Santana screams at me and Finn screams -- at me? Rachel? Rachel is crying. She screams at me to stop, or at Finn to stop. Or at Puck. Why the fuck is everyone screaming?_

_Keyed the shit out of Finn’s car._

_Jackson Pass. Route 75._

_Rachel’s plane ticket._

_The Lima Industries Corporation’s property. The limestone quarry. The water is rising._

_Vodka in my breath._

_Rachel whispering something. I can’t remember._

_The end of the world._

**_WHERE THE FUCK IS RACHEL?_ **

Quinn stares and stares. The words are dancing in front of her, mocking her and her inability to recall what had _actually happened_. It kills her to attempt remembering. Her head aches and she rubs her eyes. She tries harder to remember, but she finds out that she doesn’t remember why they’re running away from the party at Puck’s, and she doesn’t remember why she’s crying and why Rachel is crying and why Santana is screaming at her.

Then she realizes she’s crying, too.

There’s nothing left to remember. There’s nothing left to forget. What a night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand that's for another chapter! I know that I have been away for a long time, and I am very, very grateful to anyone who has waited for the update of this fic. Thank you so much, it means the world to me!
> 
> And for those who are wondering why I am back again, it's because I'm spending my days in isolation. Stay safe, much love y'all.


	20. Before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another chapter for all of you! Please enjoy reading!

Her whole body itches at the feeling of having the Dali mask covering her face as she waits for Rachel to pry the locks of Veronica Aldridge’s car, but Rachel had insisted that she should wear it since there may be cameras around the vicinity of Veronica’s house.

“Veronica is allergic to nuts,” the brunette breathes behind her Dali mask as she pulls out a pack of Growers nuts from her pocket. “Want to see her break out in hives tomorrow at school assembly?”

Quinn does a double-take. “Are you crazy? This could kill her.”

Rachel chuckles. “Oh no, she's not like deathly allergic,” she says as the car lock click faintly. Gleefully, Rachel tears the packet open and pours the nuts all over the car. “It’s just enough to knock that bitch a peg or two, you know. Come on, hurry up.”

When they’re done, Rachel locks the car again as if nothing had happened and the world around them stays still. Gingerly, Rachel offers her a hand and they bike down the street together – two kids in black bikes, black overalls and Dali masks on their faces.

“We look like we’re in a cult or something,” Quinn deadpans as they take the turn towards the trail that leads to the quarry.

“Yeah?” there’s a lilt in Rachel’s voice that holds amusement. “Maybe we are the Cult of Justice, then. Protector of the Downtrodden, Avenger of the Oppressed.”

Despite the mask, Quinn rolls her eyes. “God Berry, you’re such a dickhead.”

Rachel feigns mock annoyance and hurt, holding one part of the bar handle and laying her other hand on her chest. “You wound me, Quinn Fabray. You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“Wound me, my ass,” Quinn snorts loudly and Rachel just laughs. “Race you to the top on three?”

Rachel doesn’t answer; instead the brunette pedals harder and leaving Quinn to eat dust the brunette has left behind. Quinn screams at Rachel for being a cheat, but Rachel’s laughter is carried by the night wind and Quinn’s spirit rides on her friend’s larger-than-life laughter.

Half an hour later, they’re sitting on the pearl-white world of the quarry, trapped in an immeasurable time and space together. Rachel is tracing the constellations in the sky, and Quinn is falling asleep. So, she turns to Rachel.

“Tell me something I don’t know about you, Rachel Berry,” she whispers, and she’s only answered with a lilting trill of a laughter that Quinn wants to pocket because it reminds her of being free and alive, alive, alive and she floats in a thunderous river of gold.

“What do you want me to tell you about?”

Quinn shrugs. “Anything. Everything.”

Rachel lets out a hum. “I’d like to tell you about Plato’s Symposium and his take on soul mates. In the play, Aristophanes described the very first humans as perfect beings who resided in the heavens, with wings of silver and eyes of gold. Their bodies shone with starlight and their laughter is colored with the silver of moonshine. The stars in the sky often shone with envy, the blue of the oceans throw themselves to rocks because it spurned a jealousy in them to see such perfect beings.”

Quinn just hums at this, and Rachel sighs softly against the blonde’s hair.

“But it was not to be, Quinn. You see, Zeus is a very vain god. He feared, so much. He feared that these perfect humans will rise up against him just like the way he rose up to his father Kronos,” a dark look passes behind Rachel’s coffee eyes. “So he split the beings in half and tore their wings out. Thus, men fell from the skies – wingless, broken and hurting.”

Quinn lets out a snort. “The gods are cruel, Rachel. The gods don't care about the affairs of men."

Rachel hums, and gives Quinn a sad, broken smile. "You look so sad and broken and it hurts," she tells Quinn. “Even if you shine with starlight and your laughter is the silver of moonshine.”

Quinn doesn't answer the brunette, but her breath catches against her throat when she feels Rachel's fingers quietly lace into the spaces between her fingers and her palms still from their shaking when their lifelines match against each other.

They're silent for quiet a long time. Niether of them say anything, they are left to their own devices as they watch the moon sinking low on the horizon. Rachel's hands are still laced in Quinn's fingers -- loosely but not uncomfortable.

"Puck's sister fell in the jungle gym today," Rachel tells Quinn after some time and the blonde jumps in surprise. Rachel smiles, clearing her throat. "Dad told me because he was the one in the ER. We go with the Puckermans to the same synagogue.”

"Sarah?"

Rachel nods.

Quinn feels an acidic feeling rise up her throat. Noah Puckerman already had things on his plate. Worrying about Sarah's accident is the last thing he should be dealing with. Suddenly, she feels like an evil person for not standing up for Puck when she could have. Her hands feel clammy against Rachel's own, and her heart races when an idea struck her.

"Rachel, can we meet tomorrow? Before first period?"

"Sure. Where do you wanna meet?"

"Puck's locker."

The next morning, Quinn waits for Rachel to show up. When her watch strikes 6:00 AM, Quinn watches as Rachel pedal through the parking lot. The brunette gives Quinn a smile before chaining her bike to the rack. Wordlessly, the two of them braved the desolate hallwaysnof McKinley High, halls that usually do not permit the two of them to walk side by side.

They reach Puck's locker not too long. Quinn breathes, and asks Rachel if she can open the locker door even if she doesn't know the locker combination. Rachel slightly nods, and pulls out her nail file and a hairpin from her bow.

"How come you carry these things with you at all times, Berry?" Quinn asks with a huff.

Rachel laughs. "I like to keep myself prepared," she tells the blonde. "Come on, we gotta hurry. Sue Sylvester comes in at six-thirty."

Quinn doesn't even want to know how Rachel knows. To her, it seems like the brunette knows every thing around McKinley. So, she takes a step back and keeps on the lookout instead. Quinn watches as Rachel picks on the lock, there's a soft click, and the lock springs open.

The blonde digs into her bag, producing a wad of paper bills – some in fifty dollars, others in hundreds. “Fran and I used to save a lot of money,” Quinn says by way of explanation. “I don’t know, we wanted to drive away from here or something. I…I thought…”

Quinn chokes on her tears, but then Rachel is holding her hand and softly tells her that it’s okay and Quinn feels _understood._

Rachel opens the locker door and the next thing she knows is that she's laughing wetly with the brunette despite the smell of stale air and moldy bread emanating from Puck's locker. Quinn lets out a disgusted grunt, and Rachel laughs.

"Puck should put up a warning. It would've been helpful," the brunette smiles as Quinn shoves the wad of paper bills into Puckerman's locker. “Who knew your friend has kept dead bodies in here,” she adds as she shuts the locker door.

“Puck’s…not exactly the cleanest guy there is,” Quinn drawls out. “Although I’d like to believe he’s not the worst either, but he doesn’t wash his pants that often.”

Rachel chuckles. “Finn’s a lousy kisser,” she tells the blonde. “And he doesn’t brush his mouth. So when we make out, I kind of get to know the last thing he ate courtesy of his breath.”

Quinn slaps Rachel’s arm. “Ew, Rachel! You don’t say stuff like that out loud!” she admonishes the brunette. “Besides, if he’s really such a lousy kisser, why do you stick up with him? You could’ve someone better off, you know.”

It’s a moment too late that Quinn realizes what she just had said. She wants to take it back, she wills to take it back, but her throat had closed shut and her tongue is numb as the words fall out of her lips like ash. Rachel, for the most part, has her face on neutral.

Seemingly so, a dark look passes across Rachel’s features. The brunette’s shoulders sag. “Finn is easy,” she finally says to Quinn after sometime. Rachel leads her to the quad, where Quinn assumes they’ll wait for the football players to finish their drills.

“Dating Finn is…easy,” Rachel tells her again after sometime. “I had this idea of a perfect senior year. I’ll go to prom with my quarterback boyfriend, I’d graduate and we’ll have a tearful graduation because we have to break up since he’s moving to somewhere and I’ll be moving to New York or somewhere, either study astronomy or Broadway and I’ll make it out of here big.”

A sourness coats Quinn’s tongue. “A perfect senior year that doesn’t inclu--”

“Rach!” Finn Hudson calls at her and he waves. Rachel gives him a smile, one that doesn’t reach her eyes and she skips towards him.

“I’ll keep you updated about our project, Quinn!” Rachel shouts behind her shoulder as she runs to Finn.

Quinn makes sure to turn around so she couldn’t see Finn latching onto Rachel like a leech. Her fingers itch for something to hurl at Finn Hudson, but instead, she calmly pulls out her phone and dials St. Rita’s Medical Center. She knows Finn is still clutching at Rachel, but she tries to focus on the peppy receptionist on the other line.

“Hello, St. Rita’s Medical Center. I’m Jenny, how may I help you?” the voice sounds warm and chipper and nice, so Quinn tries her hardest not to listen at the way Rachel’s voice impatiently rise at Finn or the way Finn grumbles his way around Rachel.

“Yes…uh, Jenny, there’s uh…something I need you to do for me,” Quinn tries to tamp down her racing heart. “Yes…uh, yeah. Name? Yes, Puckerman, Sarah Puckerman. Just tell them it’s a family friend.”

Puck shows up at their usual table for lunch and he brings Sam over to their table, much to Santana’s chagrin. Nevertheless, it’s Santana who extends the olive branch first. She quietly slides a burger towards the boy, and Puck mumbles a quiet thanks. Quinn knows that for an apology between her friends, this is how good it gets.

“Artie and I have been talking about our project. We’re talking about the stuff he does for the AV Club,” he says to no one in particular. Brittany smiles at him and pats his broad shoulder, Quinn gives him a nod and Santana drawls a disgruntled huff. Puck shrugs.

“It’s not like I’ve got a bright future ahead like you guys do, but at least I want to try,” Puck tells them.

Sam shrugs. “That’s cool man, trying is better than nothing,” he interjects.

Puck smiles at Santana, and he mouths a ‘thanks’. The Latina stares weirdly at Puck, but she brushes it off because Sam is speaking something, but the way Puck’s eyes are shining with unshed tears doesn’t escape Quinn’s hazel eyes.

When the fifteen-minute bell rings, Quinn gathers her stuff and Puck offers to walk her to her AP Biology class. His sneakers scuffle against the linoleum, and Quinn is suddenly aware at the receding noise of the cafeteria the farther they walk down the hall.

“Quinn,” Puck calls out softly. He’s worrying his bottom lip, as if he’s debating whether he’d say whatever that is in his head or not. Quinn raises a brow, and an easy smile creeps on his face. “Has Santana said something to you?”

“Said what?” Quinn mutters.

Puck shrugs, so easily nonchalant that Quinn almost misses the depth of his eyes. “I don’t know, about Sarah’s accident,” he says as he lets out a sigh. “Well, I guess she didn’t. Someone’s paid Sarah’s expenses for her medication and…and someone’s left some cash in my locker. I don’t know who…I—I thought it was Santana but I guess it ain’t her. So now, I know nothing about no one, but they sure did us good.”

Quinn’s heart almost leaps from her throat. She had placed the call earlier during the day, right before her first period. She smiles wetly at Puck, and she bumps her shoulders at his bicep. “So now you don’t have to worry about Sarah.”

His eyes are now red-rimmed from tears threatening to fall, but he stops himself and he chokes down a sob. “It’s just…it’s just that no one does shit for a deadbeat Jew like me, Q-ball.”

Quinn smiles at him. “I do shit for you, Puckerman.”

Puck shrugs. “You don’t even let me bone you, let alone give me a head,” he says almost haughtily. He doubles over when Quinn Fabray in all her glory, punches him on the chest.

“Fuck you, Piggerman.”

Puck’s face splits into a grin before he punches Quinn lightly on the shoulders. “I’ll see you later, Q-Ball. Take care,” he says before sauntering to his classroom. Quinn feels lightness in her step, and she feels like she’s gold and flowing.

She feels her phone heavy in her pocket, and while waiting for Mr. Delaney to arrive, she sends a quick text to Rachel Berry. She knows the brunette is in her classes and may not ever reply, but she types and hits the send button anyway.

**Let’s meet tonight? I feel like gold and I want to take you somewhere.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, thank you so much for sticking with this story through thick and thin. I really appreciate it, making my heart all warm and fuzzy Please leave comments at the comment boxes, let me know if you like it or not, let me know if you want me to change anything in particular, anything is free pass in the comments. Stay safe, everyone. Wonder, wander!


	21. After

**“SANTANA, WHERE THE FUCK IS SHE?!”**

Quinn is livid, because Santana just wouldn’t tell her where they buried her. She had begged, threatened, yelled and cursed the girl to just tell her, but Santana wouldn’t budge. Quinn had known Santana since they were children, and she had known Santana to be a determined person -- but never this stubborn.

Santana lets out a gruff scream out of her frustration. “Quinn...I’ve told you, I don’t know where.”

Quinn lunges again for Santana, hands reaching out to claw Santana in the face, and Judy puts herself between the two girls. “Don’t fucking lie to me, you’ve lied to me about her being in Pasadena. You’re lying again.”

“Quinn!” Judy admonishes, tears in her eyes and trying to stop her daughter from hurting Santana.

Santana swallows thickly. “Quinn! I never told you she’s in Pasadena! I’ve been telling you since you woke up that she’s hurt really bad and she didn’t make it. You’re the one shoving it up your ass about her being in Pasadena. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“You’re lying!” Quinn screams before squirreling out of Judy’s grasp and clutching at Santana’s hair. Something shatters somewhere in the kitchen while Judy yells for the both of them to stop. Santana manages to free herself from the fists hurled by Quinn, and she scampers to the Fabray’s backyard, hoping to run out of the house as fast as she could.

The blonde jumps at Santana and they both roll on the grass. Just as Quinn is about to put Santana under another barrage of attacks, Quinn feels arms pulling her away from Santana. She thrashes and kicks, hoping to get away, but the arms aren’t her mother’s.

“Quinn, stop. You gotta stop it, Quinn. You’re hurting Santana,” Sam’s voice flutters underneath all the curses that are spewing out of Quinn’s mouth as he tries to stand between Santana and Quinn. She turns around, and sees Puck trying to restrain her.

“Come Quinn,” Puck says curtly. “Sam’s right, you’re hurting Santana. Let’s walk it off,” Puck says, dragging Quinn back to the patio and forcing her to sit on one of the upholstered recliners that once belonged to Quinn’s father.

Sam is leaning over Santana, trying to assess whether the other girl needs medical assistance or not. Finally, the blonde boy gives Puckerman a thumbs-up before pulling Santana up to her feet. The Latina is now sporting a bleeding lip. Then, Sam and Santana wordlessly walk past Quinn and Puck.

Quinn starts to stand, ready to go at it again but Puck wedges himself between Quinn and the Latina. Quinn feels her whole world rattle as she collides with Puck’s muscular chest. She doesn’t relent, though. Instead, she starts punching Puck’s chest.

“Ow, fuck! You still throw punches like a bitch, Quinn!” Puck exclaims. He grasps Quinn by the shoulders. “Jesus, will you just fucking listen to me! Listen to me, Quinn. If I’m going to take you to Rachel’s grave, will you just fucking stop that?”

Immediately, Quinn’s punches still and her hands settle on Puck’s black shirt. She clings on to the boy, and she fists the collars of his cotton shirt. Puck is still holding her with his hands, and she tries to blink back her tears.

“If I take you to Rachel, will you stop going after Santana like a rabid dog and fucking sit in the corner like a normal human being when they…you know, cool some steam off?” he asks her. Quinn just slightly nods and Puck sighs. “Jesus,” he mutters under his breath.

He leads Quinn to the den and seats her on the couch. “I’m gonna go and have a talk with your Ma for a moment, then I’ll come back and get you, okay?” he says. Quinn just nods her head and Puck turns back to the kitchen, where Judy, Sam and Santana are still camped out.

She had asked Santana for days, but the girl had just dodged the question over and over again. When Santana had dodged the question again this time, she had asked the Latina why, and Santana had just shrugged at her.

“How would I know, Quinn? It’s not like I’m up and about waddling around town waiting for everything Rachel Berry,” Santana says while flipping through her magazine and checking her phone.

She had torn the magazine off of Santana’s hands and the girl had snapped at her, telling her that she should do something to make use of her free time thinking of getting better rather than thinking about Rachel all the time.

“Tubbers, I get that you’re hurting,” the dark-haired girl said with disdain. “Well, if it’s in any case you fucking missed the memo, all of us are hurting because of what happened. I don’t know fuck about where she’s buried, okay? Maybe her parents told my parents, but I know no fuck,” Santana says with fury.

“Britt and I are fighting and I’m having bad day and you being this...whatever this kind of bum-phase you are in just please, please, please...fucking do us all a favor and actually help us help you, yeah? You can start with doing something actually helpful with your time rather than wonder where Rachel is all the fucking time.”

It had been a red haze after that, and she doesn’t remember much, except for the incessant necessity for her to claw at something. She vaguely remembers her mother’s arms around her, and Sam’s voice telling her to stop. The taste of grass is in her mouth, and she knows she must have bled somewhere inside her mouth because she could taste the blood in her tongue.

She sighs and puts her hands over her head, trying to remember that things she had just done. She hears Puck’s voice asking her mother for some water. Then, she hears his footfalls coming towards her, and she looks up when a shadow looms over her head.

“It’ll cool you off,” Puck says as he hands her a glass of water. He seats himself beside her, and the upholstery takes a bit of a dip because of his weight. He looks at her as she downs half of her glass, and when she sets the glass on the coffee table, he shrugs at her.

“You ready to talk now, Quinn?”

She doesn’t nod. She doesn’t say anything, either, so Puck just sort of hangs around her, waiting for her to finally break and speak. When she doesn’t, he just sighs and takes his jacket off the coat rack and shakes his boots by the rug.

“Okay,” he says to her, although it’s more of a sigh than an actual word. Even though he’s not looking at her as he’s wearing back his leather jacket, Quinn just knows that he’s talking to her. “Go grab your coat, Quinn. We’re going for a ride.”

“Are you going to take me to Rachel?” she asks, almost hollowly and Puck just nods.

“Yeah, Quinn. We’re going to go and see Rachel,” he sighs.

“She shouldn’t be here,” Quinn says as they stand under the great beech tree that stretches over the headstones. Puck is leaning on the rough bark of the tree, smoking a cigarette. Quinn sits with her legs crossed on the ground. Rachel’s headstone is white, made of marble and granite -- etched with her name and the day she died, the date of the party at Karofsky’s.

“She doesn’t deserve to be in this…whatever this damp, dark place this is,” Quinn says. Puck just hums in agreement and the tears in the back of her eyes crawl their way forwards. They start rolling down her cheeks and onto the muddy ground.

“She should be in a place…like on the top of a hill, where the sun shines and the trees dance in the wind and the clouds and the sky are above her and in a place where she and the stars are in an open conversation, not in this godforsaken soil where nothing grows and everything reeks of fucking rot…” she sobs. “She deserves light and wonder and more…”

Puck just nods and Quinn keeps on crying. The stars watch over the two of them, and Puckerman’s cigarette looks like a faint star in the distance. It looks like a red giant, a star ready to die in the darkness.

The next day, Santana promptly knocks on their front door at one in the afternoon, the split on her lip still apparent, but the Latina seems to be in a good shape. Judy lets her in, and Quinn gives a distasteful look at her mother once Judy pours Santana some cold orange juice.

“I bought bacon burgers at Warren’s downtown,” Santana says to no one in particular as she puts a paper bag on the table and takes out the foodstuff from the bag. “Though on hindsight, I don’t know how Quinn here manages to wolf down two burgers with an extra layer of cheese on both without growing a belly,” she says as if she had smelled something that stinks, but she slides the burger towards Quinn, who gingerly takes it.

Judy mutters something about making a phone call and modestly leaves the two girls in the kitchen, and for a while they’re just quiet – Santana remaining to stand by the stove and sipping her drink while Quinn sits at the counter, munching on the burger.

It’s Quinn who clears her throat. “Sit down,” she says softly and Santana chuckles darkly as she takes a seat across Quinn.

“Thought you’d never offer, you idiot.”

“Look, San...about last night I--”

“--sorry Quinn,” Santana says quietly. “Uh, a-a-about last night. I didn’t mean to snap at you. Or anything...it’s just...sometimes I uh, I get to wonder if are we really making progress, you know? Like...everything’s just...I don’t know. I don’t know what I’d do with you,” Santana gruffly says.

Quinn says nothing. “You didn’t have to look after me, Santana.”

Santana sighs. “Yeah, you’re right. I don’t have to,” she says. “But I do want to, Quinn. Judy and I and Britt and Puck and Sam and a whole lot of people, too. We all want to look after you.”

Quinn shrugs. “I never really asked you this, and you never really told me,” she says as she takes a deep breath. “But what do you remember the night there was a party at Karofsky’s house?”

It takes a long time before Santana answers. The Latina drains her orange juice, and tries to face away from Quinn. The blonde girl pulls Santana back, and the dark-haired girl swallows thickly. Quinn knows then, that Santana’s about to tell her something really important.

“We had a fight, the two of us. Puck and I kind of missed hanging out with you since you're MIA most of the time, so I asked you to come with us to the party. But you didn’t want to go, but you went anyway, but it was Rachel who brought you there. I was angry and hurt, because I felt that you’ve been spending time with her and you’ve been keeping secrets with her. Secrets don’t make friends,” Santana tells Quinn, grimacing as she did so.

“There was a fire, Quinn. The fire broke out at the back of Karofsky’s house. By the time someone yelled about it, it had grown so big that the flames towered over the trees. I was by the poolside, just next to the kitchen. They said a fight broke out in front and I decided to check it, see if we had to bail. I left Britt inside the house when someone yelled about the fire that’s why I panicked. You were outside with Puck but I had to round up Britt and Sam,” Santana recounts.

“It wasn’t the bonfire that caught the hedges, Quinn. Someone set it up. Someone set fire to the hedges and it crawled all over the house and it had gone up in a matter of seconds,” Santana says as she puts her glass on the sink. “I never really got to knowing who did it because it had been all so crazy and I was trying to round you guys up and keep you safe. I told you to stay put and...and you were very drunk. I was very drunk, too. I went inside the house to fetch Britt and Sam, but when I came back out you and Rachel were gone. I don’t know but there was a lot of screaming.”

Quinn sits on her chair, thinking. Santana puts away the cutlery and throws the trash into the garbage bin. Santana sighs as she sits herself in front of Quinn.

“It still sort of doesn’t make sense in my head, you know. I was trying to flee to safety and there's a lot of stuff going on,” she says after sometime as she takes Quinn’s hand in her own. Quinn is still sitting on her chair, and Santana takes the initiative to nudge the blonde into activity.

“You need to change and freshen up, Quinn. We’re heading to Dr. Sharpe’s in a few minutes,” Santana says softly as she plants a kiss on Quinn’s hair. “Remember what the good doctor had said about your thoughts? Don’t dwell on it so much, okay? I’ll be out by the pool while you get ready.”

Quinn steps into Dr. Sharpe’s office. It still smells faintly of pine,and it’s a scent she has grown familiar with. The psychologist is setting up a game of checkers on the coffee table. He gives Quinn a wide smile, and he beckons her to sit.

“Hello, Quinn. How have you been?” he asks, juggling the checkers in his palm.

Quinn’s brow scrunches. “I thought we’re going to talk,” she deadpans.

Dr. Sharpe laughs a little. “We are. Here Quinn, please take a seat,” he offers the couch and he moves to the ottoman placed opposite from where Quinn is supposed to sit. The blonde sits in front of Dr. Sharpe, and he arranges his pieces as if to start a match.

“I thought you’d like to talk about stuff today,” he says as he slides one of his pieces. “Some people find it easier to talk when they have something done with their hands.”

Quinn gingerly acquiesces, taking one step forward with her checkers piece. They stay quiet for a time, trying to beat each other at the game. Quinn is losing, but the pieces are still many and she may be able to turn the tide later on.

“Judy said you fought with Santana last night,” he says as he conquers her piece. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Quinn shrugs. She doesn’t really want to talk about it, but she does anyway. “She wouldn’t tell me where they buried Rachel.”

Dr. Sharpe gives her a questioning look. “And you were angry because?”

“She wouldn’t let me know,” Quinn tells him. “Sometimes it makes me angry because people like Santana…they uh…they wouldn’t let me know about stuff. I feel like they’re hiding stuff from me, like there are things they don’t want me to know at all. Especially when it concerns Rachel.”

The man hums. “Are you perhaps, angry at Santana because she kept things from you? Especially when it concerns Rachel?”

Quinn struggles to find the words. Instead, she focuses on making a jump over Dr. Sharpe’s piece. “I don’t know. Santana’s a bitch. I guess…I guess I was angry at her,” she shrugs. “And also because she kept lying to me about stuff – stuff that she didn’t want me to know, like how Rachel wasn’t at all in Pasadena and how stuff is all in my head. She doesn't help me remember...” she trails off, not really sure if Santana has deliberately done it or not.

Dr. Sharpe visibly exhales. “Quinn,” he starts to say. He lays down the pieces at the side of the board and his blue eyes lift to meet her thunderous gaze. “Your brain telling you Rachel’s in Pasadena is part of your grieving process. And it’s alright, you’re still healing and you’re a long way from being healed. And that is okay.”

Quinn internally huffs. She's not okay. She's never been. Ever since she woke up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand thank you so much for sticking with my story! Stuff was crazy again, but it doesn't warrant another hiatus for the moment. Anyways, I want you all to stay safe and be kind to each other. Peace!
> 
> Find me in Twitter: @artisturtle


	22. Before

The bike ride to the cemetery is silent. Quinn leads the way, Rachel is does not fall far behind, but they go on a languid pace. They’re not in a hurry; neither of them feels the need to hurry at all. The trees slowly pass them by, each sporting their autumn glory.

They laid their bikes on the trimmed grass and walked past headstones, with Quinn leading them out into the back portion of the cemetery. Rachel is quiet, there’s no need for words, really. Somehow, each of them had an idea where to go, without even telling each other where they are headed.

They come upon a pearl-white headstone and Quinn stops. Then, she sets her school bag next to the headstone before ruffling inside, getting a smooth pebble from one of the pockets. Quinn sits on the grass, her legs crossed and laid the pebble on the white granite that read Francine Emmylou Fabray.

Rachel sets her bag beside Quinn’s and mirrors Quinn’s sitting position beside her. They’re quiet, watching in awe as the smooth pebble changeincolor against the setting sun. The pebble is warm-white, smooth in texture but rippled with green-grey at the sides. Quinn pockets it after sometime.

Quinn lets out a sigh she’s holding and she faces Rachel. “When we were younger, before everything else, my Dad brought us to California. It was so fun. Frannie and I spent days at the beach, getting sunburn and all of that.”

A lump comes up her throat and she swallows thickly. “He usually goes golfing with his buddies and Mom is always at the spa so it's just me and Frannie. It was really great and I had the best time of my life...of sorts,” she says. “One day, Fran and I went swimming into the sea and she’s been telling me to go dive underwater. I’m still small and stocky back then and Fran, she was this ball of unexpended energy and…and long, lanky legs and teeth. She...she picked up this smooth rock at the bottom of the sea and she'd always throw this into the ocean. I'd dive this time and time again to find and give it back to her.”

She sighs and closes her eyes because Rachel’s looking at her with her dark coffee eyes and her head feels light, lighter than it ever did. In the back of her eyes, she could see eighteen-year old Frannie, all smiles and gray-green eyes. There’s the salty tang of the ocean and she’s wearing a yellow bikini and Quinn’s heart stutters because she could see her sister so alive, alive, alive.

She’s brought back to the surface when a tan hand clasps her own. The lithe fingers are smaller than hers, but they fit perfectly between the gaps of her fingertips. Rachel’s brown eyes are watery, full with emotion and unshed tears.

The air around them has grown relatively cooler, and the first few stars make themselves known against the darkening sky. Rachel scoots closer to Quinn, their shoulders bumping gently at each other. The roughened callus of Rachel’s thumb softly traces the tear streaks on Quinn’s cheeks.

“Quinn, look up. Do you see it?” she hears Rachel whisper. “That bright star in the west, do you see it? It’s Hesperus,” Rachel tells her.

Quinn couldn’t help but notice the way Rachel gulps down before speaking. Quinn sniffles, and she lets out a wet rumble of laughter as she spots the lone star shining against the faint blue-pink of dusk in the western sky.

“It’s called the evening star. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Wonderful,” Rachel continues. “Stars are the eyes of heaven, Quinn. The stars are put in the sky to give eyes to those who are up there so they can see what’s going on down here.”

There’s a pregnant pause between the two girls, both of them had their eyes to the skies. Coffee-brown and honey-gold, they watch the silent march of the stars across the heavens.

Quinn hears Rachel sigh. Their gazes meet for a moment and the pause stops. “I think Frannie is the Center of the Universe, Quinn. Francine Emmylou Fabray, Center of the Universe, in a way, in her own way.”

A sob tears out of Quinn’s throat, but she leans on Rachel as they turn back to look up at the skies, more stars appearing once every moment, littering the darkening blue with a hundred glassy points.

Quinn gently squeezes the hand that clasps around her own. It feels strong, sturdy and reliant. Rachel squeezes back and they both match their lifelines together and they’re living and they are both alive – she is alive.

“I miss you,” Quinn whispers brokenly and she watches Hesperus, shining a little bit brighter.

They drag their bikes along the road as they walk home. It’s a school night, and they both have to finish stuff for school. It’s quiet, the hooting of barn owls and the chilly winter wind almost upon them. The smell of ice is in the air again, this time it’s more pronounced and it tells them winter is close by.

“Pretty soon, it will snow,” Quinn says quietly.

Rachel hums. “Yeah, do you have any plans for Winter Break?”

Quinn just shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe spend time with my grandparents. Like we usually do,” she almost snorts, because she’s certain that they will be doing things not the way they usually do because Frannie is gone.

The “usual” means Frannie throwing cookie dough on everyone while they make it with salt instead of sugar – and it hurts Quinn to remember. It will be the first winter that Frannie will not be by her side as they explore the intricacies and mysteries of their grandparents’ rooms.

The fork between Dudley Road and North Birch is close, looming ahead of them. Quinn inadvertently chooses not to take the road towards home, and instead follows Rachel as they take on North Birch. Rachel murderously looks at Quinn, but the blonde just shrugs and cuts the brunette when she tries to open her mouth.

“At least let me walk you home,” Quinn says. “It’s late. And before you say something about being safe, I know these streets like the back of my palm even at night, Berry. I can take the route at Del Monico and be home by then.”

Rachel is about to say something, but then decides on it. Instead she holds Quinn’s free hand and tugs on it. “We’re still on Saturday afternoon, right? I’ll come and pick you up. Just to be fair because you walked me home tonight,” the brunette offers.

Quinn nods. “That’s fine,” she tells the brunette. They take a left turn to Birch Hill Road and Rachel’s house looms in the distance – a white-painted suburban house with a quaint porch. They stand in front of the house for a while, until finally Rachel steps towards the house.

Rachel gives her a grateful smile. “Don’t you want to come on up?” she asks as she starts to climb the steps of their porch.

Quinn politely refuses and shakes her head. “Thanks for offering, but Mom’s going to wonder where I’ve gone again,” she tells Rachel, and the brunette nods in understanding. Quinn gives her a smile before turning on her heels and starts to head to Del Monico.

She’s a few feet away when Rachel calls her attention. “Quinn,” she says. She’s on their lawn, chest clearly heaving from the exertion. Rachel must have ran from the porch to the lawn to catch up to her. “Quinn, about today…thank you.”

Quinn smiles softly as she turns. “No, Rachel. Thank you for today.”

Rachel pushes a wayward blonde lock behind Quinn’s ear, standing on her toes as she does because Quinn is taller than her. Her eyes are dark obsidian, the color of rich coffee just at the break of dawn. Golden light from the lamp post outside color Rachel’s skin with bronze, and Quinn aches just a little bit when Rachel’s fingertips graze the side of her cheek for the last time.

“Sleep well, Little Lion Quinn.”

Quinn nods. “I…I should go. I’ll see you at school tomorrow,” she whispers, almost brokenly, almost just a reverently. Her hands feel clammy, her heart thuds in her chest, her eyes see nothing but bronze and coffee and stars and the smile of a girl that dangerously makes her heart fumble.

Saturday comes faster than she realizes it and Saturday morning finds her sitting on their front porch, waiting for the brunette to show up. Rachel is taking forever. The sun is already halfway in the sky, and she’s been calling the brunette for almost half an hour. When Rachel appears on the street on her bike, she runs to the sidewalk to meet her.

“What took you so long?” she scowls. “And where’s your car?”

“My car battery broke down,” Rachel guiltily offers, but Quinn is still scowling. “I stupidly left the lights on last night and I didn’t remember not until I tried to start it today. I know, I…I should have called to tell you, but I left my phone at Finn’s last night and he’s yet to return it so I couldn’t call you. I’m really, really sorry, Quinn. If you want to cancel, it’s okay.”

Quinn shakes her head, blonde hair bouncing just past her shoulders. “No,” she says forcefully. “You’re already here, Rachel. And it’d be a waste if we don’t go, so we’re going,” Quinn mutters, although the only thing that sits glaringly in her mind is the fact that Rachel had been at Finn’s last night. She feels the acidic sludge rising up her stomach, and she swallows an awfully large amount of air to push it down from where it came from.

“We can’t ride our bikes to Columbus,” Rachel says thoughtfully.

Quinn gives her a sidelong glance. “I’m driving us there, Berry,” she says curtly, and she turns on her heels back to the inside of the house. She comes back with the car keys, and she opens the garage. The metallic roll-up door gives a groan of protest as Quinn painstakingly opens it.

There it sits in its glory, a dark-gray Sedan. It had once belonged to Frannie but the older Fabray had given it to Quinn as a birthday gift.The car sits in the midst of the mostly-empty room. There’s a shelf of cans, mops, cloth and a cardboard boxes. Quinn’s throat moves up and down as she swallows hard.

_“Pretty soon, you’ll take me to rides, too,” Frannie had told her when she handed her the keys. “We’ll go places, Quinnie-bop!”_

Rachel takes notice, and she runs a comforting hand over Quinn’s arm.

“Quinn, it’s really okay if you don’t drive us there,” Rachel says. “I mean, we could go on the next Saturday. I don’t mind. I promise.”

She takes a long, low draw of air and exhales. “It’s okay, Rachel. I’ve done this before, right? We’ve driven before. I think I’m going to be okay,” she answers the brunette shakily. “I think we’ll be okay,” she states, more to herself than to Rachel -- and she opens the car door. It smells of pine and a hint of fruity sweetness, and Quinn takes a large gulp of air as it meets her.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Quinn? Are you really sure about this? I can drive if you…” Rachel asks. “I mean it was the freeway back then and this is Columbus we’re talking about and…”

Quinn motions for her to keep quiet, but she warily sits behind the wheel and puts the key into ignition. The car gives a low rumble, and her knuckles turn white as she grips the wheel with such a force. Rachel seats herself at the passenger’s side, and she turns to Quinn with worried eyes.

“Yes, Rachel. I’m sure. I promise we will be fine,” Quinn rolls her eyes. “You said get back on the camel, right? This is me getting back on that goddamn camel.”

Rachel breathes, a shaky smile splits her face in half as Quinn puts the car in reverse, trying to think of anything else but the fluttery, fuzzy feeling in the pit of her chest, right where her stomach starts. Quinn manages to pull herself together before stepping on the gas pedal.

They back out of the garage slowly, with Rachel bating every single breath she takes and Quinn checking the headlights every now and then as she grips the steering wheel in her hands tightly. They jolt a bit when they had come to the sidewalk and Quinn put the car into drive.

“See?” Quinn says as they turn down the street. “I’m calm, Rachel. I’m good. I can drive without freaking out. I’ve done this before, we’ve done this before,” she mutters lowly at Rachel, and as if it proves her point, Quinn steps harder on the accelerator, jumping from thirty-five to fifty-five.

Rachel’s eyes go wide as the car picks up speed. A shrewd smile creeps up her face until it becomes full-on laughter. “Okay! Okay! I see your point. Back to the camel,” she laughs, the sound of her laughter tumbling off her lips as they drive past houses of Quinn’s neighborhood. Several people look at them as if they had gone crazy.

Quinn just chuckles as she zips down the road. There are a few clouds rolling in from the west, but she’s not worried that the rain would catch them out in the road. As they turn for the neighborhood exit, Quinn manages to knock down a mailbox.

“Jesus, Quinn!” Rachel exclaims. When they hear the front door opening, Quinn steps on the accelerator, and they tear through the street -- their laughter ringing in their air, heartbeats racing in their throat and dust and wind all over them.

“Christ,” Quinn mutters once they’re on the highway. “I can’t believe we did that. We actually did that. God, we’re going to be charged with felony. Shit, they’re gonna sue me,” Quinn says as she grips on the steering wheel tightly.

Rachel throws her head back and laughs. “They’re not going to sue you with felony, Quinn,” then, Rachel almost jumps on her seat when she realizes it. “Oh God, we both called Jesus Christ.”

Quinn lightly punches Rachel’s shoulders. “Shut up,” she says, rolling her eyes at Rachel, but also smiling to herself. They speed down the highway. The old Sedan rattles off rather uncomfortably, and the radio is all static so they’re forced to hear the grating metal as they head to the highway.

Rachel asks them to stop at a coffee shop just a few blocks away from the city library. The car gives a jolt as Quinn awkwardly pulls to a parallel park on the other side of the street. Rachel opens the car door just as Quinn opens her side, and Quinn realizes she couldn’t fully open the car door because she’s parked too close to the jutting sidewalk.

She lets out a string of curses just as she sees Rachel’s face swimming back into view. An amused smirk is playing across the brunette’s lips, and her eyes are dancing in silenced mirth. Quinn glares at Rachel, but the other girl just holds her hand out as a sign of assistance offered.

“Just get out of the car through this side, Quinn,” she says and Quinn rolls her eyes -- but she takes Rachel’s hand and they stalk their way inside the coffee shop. She furrows her brow when she hears the chimes tinkle as Rachel pushes the door open, and she furrows them even more when she sees the barista smile at them as if he had known them all their lives.

“Are you a regular here?” she whispers at Rachel as they get a table at the back of the shop. Rachel just shakes her head in disapproval.

“The fact, Quinn…is that I’ve never been here,” she says and sits on the chair with a flourish. “Do you want to be the one to take our order together, or do you want to take turns?” she asks, needlessly cross her legs underneath the table.

Quinn shrugs. “I don’t know, which seems to work well with you?”

Rachel shrugs back. “Either way works for me.”

The hazel-eyed blonde lets out a sigh. “Fine,” she says. “We’ll take turns then. I’ll go first,” she declares, much to herself rather than to Rachel. The brunette gives her a nod and she saunters towards the smiling barista. She comes back with a regular latte in her hand.

“Your turn,” she says and Rachel stands from her seat. Before Rachel could leave, Quinn calls her by name. With a dramatic turn, Rachel turns towards her way, Sparkler intact across her face.

“If this was your first time coming here, why’d you choose to come here, in this place?” she asks. It’s a question that had just popped into her mind, and it’s nowhere near important, but nevertheless she asks Rachel about it.

The brunette throws her head back, a small and soft chuckle escaping her lips. “I just wanted to try, Quinn. I figured we’d do something off the road to make this moment count,” she says with a smile and she sways her hips as she goes towards the barista to order her coffee.

Rachel comes back with her too-many-things-Quinn-doesn’t-recognize tea -- the one with the obsessively high price. Quinn scrunches with disgust at the girl’s beverage, and then looks at the brunette in the eye.

“Berry, you could have been drinking bong water and you probably wouldn’t know anything about it.”

Rachel just smiles at her. “It’s jasmine-chamomile tea, in wintermelon flavor with a dash of honey to season it.”

Quinn makes a fake, gagging noise. “Impressive,” she deadpans.

Rachel just rolls her eyes at Quinn as she sets her cup over the table and she leans close to Quinn, too close that Quinn could feel her breath ghosting just across her face and she could smell her hair smelling like mangoes.

“So, Quinn…what do you think of Finn?” she asks, brown eyes slightly glazed and wide.

“Uh…” she trails off. All she knows about Finn is that he’s friends with the jerks of McKinley High. She couldn’t blame him, though. If it makes him popular to be friends with Karofsky and Azimio, she’d probably do the same if she was in his shoes.

“He’s asked me to go with him to David’s party during the winter break. Sure, we looked like we’re dating for the better part of the year, but we’re not really…yet. Well, so now he’s really emphasized it that we’re going out, together as in together, boyfriend and girlfriend status,” Rachel states, and Quinn feels like emptying her breakfast out of her stomach.

Once Santana hears of the party, she’ll go and Santana wouldn’t let this opportunity pass by without dragging her to the said party. Worst of it is that Rachel and Finn will be there -- together. And she has to endure seeing the two all over each other.

She’s suddenly glad that she’s heading to Maryland because by then, she wouldn’t be able to witness all of these. Sure, it’s sickening to know, but it’s a lot more sickening to see Finn and Rachel together.

There’s a doofus grin on Rachel’s face that it makes Quinn sick. She doesn’t want Rachel going out with Finn, she doesn’t want her going out _with anyone,_ either.

“So, what do you think?” Rachel asks innocently, seemingly oblivious to the tumultuous storm brewing inside her.

Quinn toys with the lid of her coffee cup, and she suddenly finds her cup so much more interesting than the conversation Rachel is steering them to.

“Well,” Quinn drawls, because really, she can’t say anything. “I’m not sure. I don’t know Finn that much. I guess you know him that much to even like him in the first place. I mean, he’s popular, I guess. But I don’t know enough to say anything.”

Rachel lets out a laugh. “It’s not like we’re going to last long enough, Quinn. I mean, there’s just a few months and then we’re graduating and we’re off to college. It’s not a big deal, Quinn. I’ll break up with him after graduation.”

“What?” she splutters as she does a double take.

Rachel sighs. “Finn is…he’s easy to be with. I mean, it’s pleasing to the eye. It’s not complicated. Being with him…is not complicated,” she snorts. “Finn has the attention span of a gold fish. It’s easier to be like that, you know? Things are easy with Finn. And we are good together. Do you think we look good together?”

Quinn just hums. Of course, Rachel looks good with anyone -- Finn or no Finn. But she wishes it’s not Finn she’s going out with. She’s still staring at her coffee cup, down to the foam of her latte, when she hears Rachel get up from the seat.

 _Is this how a heart breaks?_ Quinn thinks bitterly to herself.

“We should go now, Quinn,” she says, flipping her hair off her shoulders. “The library is waiting for us,” she says with the reverence of a prayer. Quinn tries to clear her throat, knowing that Rachel’s eyes are on her, and she stands from her seat as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaand thank you! This chapter is one of the "weaker" ones, I suppose. I haven't been feeling myself lately. Nevertheless, I hope you've enjoyed this chapter the way you enjoyed the others. Stay safe, peace! xx
> 
> Find me on Twitter: @artisturtle


	23. After

Santana gets a job at the local cineplex. Quinn wonders how Santana’s father had reacted when Santana had told him that she’s deferring college for a year. Granted, Santana’s father isn’t like her own. If it had been her in Santana’s shoes, her father would’ve wrung her neck until it twisted -- but her father can’t lord over her anymore, so she figures her mother would be okay with her deferring.

Summer is almost over, yet Quinn has no plans for the future yet. There’s not talk of going to college in the household, and it seems to Quinn that her mother is only waiting for her to mention it -- which she isn’t going to anytime soon.

“So, the whole place is a dump,” Santana mentions to her as they sit on a booth at BreadStiX. It’s her day-off, and they’re spending their afternoon in the diner, while waiting for Brittany to finish in the dance class she’s teaching in downtown Lima. “I mean, no one even cares if I sleep at work,” she rambles on.

“Yeah?” Quinn says, toying with the hem of her shirt. Santana nods and noisily sucks on the straw of her iced tea. They’re not ordering, but the general manager is Brittany’s dad, and it’s around the time in the afternoon where no one gets in, so they get a free pass hanging around the diner.

“Hey San,” she breathes out. “Don’t you ever miss Britt, like when she’s away or something?”

Santana blinks. “Uh, what?” she snorts. It’s not sexy or cute, but it’s Santana and Quinn strangely feels comforted by it. “I don’t miss her. There’s just a certain point when they become a constant, you know? Like today, she’s teaching at the dance class and she doesn’t reply or text me, but it doesn’t bother me anymore, because I know she’ll come home tonight and I know by then she’ll have time for me.”

She’s back at picking at the frayed edges of her shirt and Santana quiets down her slurping noises, glaring at anyone who would chance a look towards her way. The dark-skinned girl leans over the table and peers at her.

Quinn makes a face under such scrutiny, but Santana looks on at her with worry.

“You miss her, don’t you?” Santana asks. “Rachel, I mean.”

Quinn just nods. Santana hums and there’s a lull between them. When it comes to Rachel, neither of them knows what to say. Sometimes, Quinn has everything to say about Rachel, but she just doesn’t have the voice to say it. Other times, Quinn thinks that Santana has something to say, but then the Latina will not say anything and it drives Quinn crazy.

“She loved this place,” Quinn tells Santana after some time. The silence is killing her, and she wonders if it’s always like this -- that losing Rachel and without Rachel around, it will always feel like it’s killing her. “BreadStiX, I mean. She loves the food here, because they’re the only ones that serve vegan spaghetti and that they’re closest to home, you know.”

Santana sips on her water, but she doesn’t say anything. “We hung out here…in that corner booth by the counter,” she says as she jerks her thumb to the direction of the far end of the diner. “She read me Sylvia Plath that day. We’re doing our project and it was raining and it was...beautiful. She had a couple shots of vodka and she was beautiful, all brown hair and dark eyes.”

She didn’t tell Santana that it was after they snuck a get-well card into Michael Chang’s room because he broke his leg after their football game.

The words are a tumbling torrent out of her mouth, and she doesn’t realize that she’s breathing heavily not until Santana moves from the opposite side of the table just to sit next to her. She feels Santana’s gentle hands rubbing her back slowly.

“Breathe, Quinn. You need to breathe, okay?”

Quinn heaves. “I just don’t want to lose this memory again, San. I don’t want to lose the times I had with Rachel,” she swallows thickly. “I don’t want to wake up tomorrow not remember her in this place, in this town. Sometimes, I feel like my brain is my enemy, San.”

Santana tightly grasps her by the shoulders. “Listen to me, Quinn. We’ve gone through this countless of times before,” she says as she looks straight into Quinn’s hazel eyes. “No one’s going to take your memories of Rachel away from you, do you understand? Your brain just needs more time to heal, Quinn.”

“What if I completely forget her?” Quinn asks. “Don’t you get to ask yourself that at night, like what if Brittany forgets everything -- or what if she forgets everything and they’ll never come back? I don’t want that happening to my memories, San. Much more with the ones with Rachel along in it, you know.”

Santana shakes her head miserably, and then she gathers Quinn in her arms. “Quinn, it’s just your brain trying to remember. Sometimes, it takes time. The doctors told you this, Quinn. Sometimes, you’ll have lucid days, and those days are important. You will not forget Rachel, okay? It’s simply not possible for you to do so,” Santana says.

The waiter looks at them from his perch behind the bar. His thick brows curve in a worried frown, but Santana just shakes her head and mouths to him that they’re fine. The few customers in the diner are already watching them, and she hears Santana reassuring them that it’s okay.

Quinn wants to scream at Santana that it’s not. That it’s never going to be okay.

In fact, Quinn thinks she’s never going to be. But she keeps quiet, because as much as she wants to say that out loud, she knows that it’s not going to help anyone. It’s not going to matter because she has to move on, regardless if it’s okay or not.

She finds herself sitting at the community room of Columbus Metropolitan Library. The librarian always looks towards her way because she’s just sort of sitting there and staring at nothing. She clutches on her copy of Virginia Woolf’s _The Waves_ , her knuckles turning white.

Dr. Sharpe had told her to visit the places that remind her so much of Rachel, he said that maybe that could help her remember, but all she could remember in this room is the way the golden light falls upon Rachel’s head and it makes her hair look like gossamer.

It makes her feel like an idiot sitting there, but she doesn’t find strength in her legs to get out of the library. She takes a gulp of air and she smells the redolence of ink on paper. It makes her eyes sting, and Quinn takes deep breaths to calm down, all the while counting from one to ten.

She’s on her fourth round of counting when she feels her phone vibrate in her pocket. She slides it open and there’s a text from Brittany, asking her if she’s good to go because Santana is already heading downtown to pick Brittany up, and has promised to pick her up on the way home as well.

She replies an affirmation to Brittany, because there’s nothing much else she has to do in there. The librarian stares at her for the umpteenth time, but he doesn’t say anything and he just goes back to her work. Quinn feels like she really needs to get out, but the only place she knows other than the library is the coffee shop outside, and Quinn isn’t really sure how that would turn out if she hangs out in the place.

Though they’ve only been there once, it had imprinted to Quinn, and she’s not sure if she could handle staying in a place where Rachel’s presence mostly lingers. Sometimes, Quinn thinks in colors, and coffee had always been Rachel, and Quinn is not ready to set foot on a place where she feels Rachel so strongly.

Nevertheless, her legs have a mind of their own, and she finds herself standing in front of the coffee shop. The letters written in dry-brush script glares at her, like blinding light. Quinn dreads going inside the shop.

She goes in anyway.

The door gives a cacophony of chimes as she opens it. The barista, who is wiping the bar counter with a dirty cloth, looks up. He smiles at Quinn as if she’s an old friend, and he bustles his way out of the bar counter to get her order.

She’s certain that she hasn’t met the barista before, but he’s still smiling at her so she forces a smile just to spite him. He doesn’t get it, so he’s just smiling at her as he asks her for her order, pretending to write on his notepad even though he’s not really writing on it.

“I’ll have your regular latte,” she says softly. She thinks that if she says it out loud, Rachel would just barge in through the doors -- with a flurry of golden dust and cold air, chiding her for consuming coffee with animal and dairy products.

Without really thinking about it, she holds her hand out as the barista starts to fill in her order says, “I’ll have a soy latte instead.”

The barista mumbles something under his breath, but he fills it in anyway. Quinn waits at the counter, tapping her chapped fingernails on the marble as she waits for the cup. When she’s done, the barista hands the coffee cup towards her, and she reaches out with shaking fingertips.

She doesn’t even like it, but she’s bought it just to remind her of Rachel. She sets the cup on the table, and stares at the beads of vapor sticking on the side of the cup. The barista gives her a look, but she doesn’t actually notice him.

She sits there, for a couple of minutes before the chimes signal another customer. She turns her head towards the door, and she feels her blood run cold when she sees that it’s Finn. Even though it’s still summer, he’s wearing one of his thick Abercrombie shirt, the kind of knitted shirt that used to make Rachel swoon. He slings his arm over Kitty Wilde, but the girl shrugs it off.

A dark look passes over Finn’s face and for a moment Quinn thinks that he’s going to jump at her throat again but Kitty puts a calming hand around his bicep and he seems to calm down. Kitty glowers at her before worriedly dragging Finn into a booth far from theirs. Quinn’s brow scrunches in confusion. Finn Hudson had been such a golden boy -- Rachel’s death must have changed him as well.

Kitty and Finn both walk over to a booth by the window just a few tables away from her, waiting for their order to be filled up. Her hands tremble sporadically, and she wishes that those two would just disappear. Her bladder calls for her attention, but she doesn’t have the courage to stand. She sighs in relief when she sees the familiar Jeep pull up across the road and Santana getting out of the car.

The door opens to the chimes, and Santana glares at Finn Hudson before sauntering towards Quinn. She gives one final scowl at the other teens by the window, before sitting herself across the hazel-eyed blonde.

“Huh, didn’t know your boy Finn McJerk is dating Kitty now,” she says with a huff.

Quinn averts her eyes away from the two. “It’s not like it’s our business, San. Finn can date anyone he wants.”

“Of course, it isn’t,” Santana rolls her eyes, jabbing the sarcasm at her blonde friend. “Come on, Quinn. We need to go,” she says to Quinn.

As she stands, tugging on her shirt that caught at the chair. “Shit,” Quinn mutters when they both hear the definite sound of cloth tearing. “I have to use the restroom first,” she says as she hands out the coffee cup back to Santana -- the tingly feeling in her abdomen is back again.

Santana just rolls her eyes and grabs the coffee cup from Quinn.

“I’ll be in the car,” Santana hisses. “Make it fast, Fabray. We don’t have all day.”

She relieves herself quickly. When she gets out of the cubicle and tries to wash her hands, Kitty is fixing herself in front of the mirror. Kitty looks at her with wide eyes, her mascara brush long forgotten between her fingers.

“Hey, about earlier...I just wa-” Quinn feels the need to thank Kitty for standing between her and Finn, but the steely glint on Kitty’s eyes is enough to make her stop.

“I didn’t do it for you,” Kitty says curtly before storming out of the restroom.

She’s learned the art of sneaking out, and she’s learned the art of sneaking in.

Her sneakers scuffle quietly over the carpet of Rachel’s bedroom. She makes as little noise as possible, even though she knows that the Berry’s house is empty. She had watched Hiram Berry drive to work earlier that morning and his husband’s car is not in the garage, so she’s fairly certain she’s alone.

It’s so dark, almost close to a blackberry stain. Quinn stares through Rachel’s window. There’s a definite possibility of rain falling in the next two hours or so. So she decides to make it quick.

First, she rifles through Rachel’s drawers -- bedside table, vanity table, the small dresser. She doesn’t find it. Next, she crouches underneath her bed, and lifts the dusty shoe box filled with trinkets and letters. It’s not there. It’s almost an hour when she finishes upturning Rachel’s room, and it takes her at least two more to put it in shape again.

She doesn’t find Rachel’s journal.

So, she heads to the next most logical place that Rachel could have left or hidden her journal. She jumps over the window where she had sneaked in, and lands awkwardly on the Berry’s yard. She crawls underneath the hedge that separates the Berry’s yard and Mrs. Michaelson’s patio. Then, she rounds the alley to get to her bike, which she had parked conveniently between the two houses.

She speeds down the street, past the cemetery, past the road that leads to Jackson Pass, past Barnes Bridge until she came to the freeway. The road is empty, except for an occasional car that passes her. She pedals hard against her bike, her lungs straining at the effort. The wind is whipping at her face like the way it had whipped her blonde locks _that night._

The last slivers of light have long gone by the time she had reached the shack. She counts her steps, over the stairs and avoids the weak stair-steps and reaches the loft. One by one, Quinn feels for the loose floorboards.

Loose floorboards are Rachel’s favorite, because they could hide something and everything underneath them. Whether it be weed, vodka, condoms, drugs and lip gloss -- Rachel has probably hidden a thousand things underneath the loose boards of the decrepit shack.

“Jesus, you could hide a corpse in here,” she remembers Rachel saying one time, nose scrunched at the dust as they pry the floorboards so they could hide vodka and cigarettes under it.

She finds a floorboard, and she pries it open. It’s empty, and she realizes that she had drunk the last of the cheap rum that had been cached in there. She tries again at another loose board. This time, Quinn finds what she had been looking for the whole day.

Quinn’s trembling hands cradle it gingerly, as if it’s not a notebook but a tray of fragile eggs. She sits herself on the cold, hardwood floor and Quinn rifles through the pages of the notebook.

There are words, poems, quotations from poets. There are haphazard sketches and caricatures of their usual activities and their teachers. There’s a cartoon of Santana’s head attached to a bulldog’s body. Santana’s cartoon-face is barking at a bespectacled boy on a wheelchair.

Quinn stifles her laughter.

Suddenly, all the writings and all of Rachel’s work stop. There’s nothing but addresses and contact numbers of lawyers -- lawyers from Lima, Cincinnati, Akron, Allentown and even Carmel and Columbus. All of them are crashed out angrily with red ink. Beyond that page, there’s nothing -- just a note that Rachel had written in her loopy handwriting.

 _Valkryja with the bleached hair,_  
_your Ragnarok is my own_  
_come carry me to your Valhalla_

She closes the notebook and Officer Stone’s voice starts to echo in her head, telling her that she should call the cops because she’s now starting to remember at least some parts of that night. She tells herself she should call them, but then she remembers Santana telling her that her phone had been soaked in the quarry that night.

Then, she remembers that she wasn’t bringing her phone with her to the shack that night.

She stares at Rachel’s journal and it stares back at her. She’s looking for answers, and if anything, the journal just made her ask more questions. She feels the teeny-tiny pulsating behind her head -- the evident onset of a headache is coming at her.

She flips the notebook close, and she pinches the bridge of her nose. Her mother knocks on her door, and she quickly hides Rachel’s journal underneath her pillows. She straightens herself up before opening the door.

“Yeah?” she quirks a brow at her mother.

“Santana’s here to pick you up,” Judy says. “She said you’re going to go shopping today…after going to see Dr. Sharpe,” it’s more of a question rather than a statement. Quinn forces a smile to creep upon her face and Judy immediately sees through her.

“Yeah,” she nods. “He wants me to surround myself with people. Visit places Rachel and I went to. See the world and that stuff, instead of staying here and just…doing whatever the hell it is I do here. He says it’ll do me good, and it might help me remember…stuff -- from the party,” she shrugs.

There’s pregnant pause between them, and Judy does nothing to fill it. Instead, she just nods at Quinn and turns on her heel. “You should get dressed, Quinn. She’s waiting for you downstairs.”

When she comes out of her room -- dressed in her usual sweatpants and shirt, her mother is waiting for her, hands clasped around her chest. “Santana’s a good friend, Quinn. Santana’s doing a great job of helping you out.”

Quinn strains a smile. “I know, Mom.”

Her mother smiles back at her, and before she could reassure her, Santana calls her downstairs. She smiles at her friend when she sees her, and she also casts a smile to a bouncing Brittany on the couch.

“You’re all set?” Santana queries, and she just nods at her.

Judy walks the three of them to the door, and she watches as Quinn get into Santana’s car. Quinn piles herself in the backseat, and Santana drives them down to Dr. Sharpe’s office. As they pull up the large, glass-and-steel infrastructure, Quinn unbuckles her seat belt.

“Something happened, Santana. I don’t know what, but something happened and the party happened and the fire happened and Rachel died,” she says hollowly when Santana quirks her brow at her through the rear-view mirror. They’ve pulled up in front of the clinic five minutes ago, and Quinn doesn’t make a move to get out of the car.

“What are you talking about, Quinn?” it’s Brittany that asks her.

“The party…everything,” she mutters. “It feels like there’s something missing, I think I’m missing something…something really important. I don’t know, I can’t remember what it is, but I think that Rachel didn’t want to die just like that,” she trails off, and Santana is looking at her like she’s grown two heads.

“Are you saying Rachel Berry is suicidal?” Santana mutters. “Girl, I’ve known her for years and Berry is anything but suicidal. Psycopath, maybe...but suicidal? Nah. Rachel Berry would let the world die first before she’d fucking kill herself.”

“No, I don’t think she is suicidal…but, I don’t know. You see, Rachel is, she’s...a complicated person,” Quinn trails off. “I don’t know anything right now. I have to find out…okay? I just don’t know, San.”

“You know what Quinn, I can take all of this shit you’re dealing with and believe me when I say we are here to help you in any way we can, but I need you to fix yourself some too, okay? I don’t mean it in a bad way, but maybe you shouldstop focusing so much about these things, your focus should be yourself for now, alright? Things will pan out later on. You have to focus on yourself for the meantime,” Santana turns the ignition off and unclasps her own seat belt. Brittany just follows the two quietly into Dr. Sharpe’s clinic.

They don’t talk after that. As they sit at the reception lounge, Brittany keeps asking her if she’s okay, but her thoughts always go back to Rachel’s journal and Rachel’s note. She lies through her teeth, though -- and tells Brittany that she’s fine. However, after the third time she tells Brittany another lie about herself, she catches Santana watching her with a harsh, dirty look in her eye.

Santana doesn’t call her out on it, though. But, she knows that the Latina won’t let it slide and let her go off the hook that easy, so she pushes the ugly thought of having to talk about Rachel’s death with Santana later.

She doesn’t tell Dr. Sharpe about Rachel’s journal or her note. Instead, she ends up telling the doctor about her plans for her shopping with Santana. The doctor smiles at her like she’s turned into gold and he clasps his hand calmly on the desk, but from the way his eyes flit nervously about the place, Quinn knows he’s anything but calm.

“That’s good Quinn, I’m glad you’re doing that,” he says in a measured, even voice. “I think your friends and you mother is glad about it, too.”

“They are,” Quinn says dryly, but Dr. Sharpe is still smiling at her.

Dr. Sharpe studies her, it's almost as if he sees through her lie. "Do you remember anything?"

Quinn shakes her head, lying through her teeth. Rachel's voice ghosts behind her ear, gently telling her to keep quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand, thank you so much for reading through this chapter! You've been very sweet staying with this story like that. Leave me how this chapter made you feel. Stay safe, much love! xx
> 
> Come find me on Twitter @artisturtle!


	24. Before

Rachel takes her to an antiquarian record store after they spend the entire afternoon in the library. Quinn’s head is reeling from the smell of ink and paper, and her heart is full as they take notes and notes about the stars and the sun.

“I had fun today,” Quinn says softly as her hand sifts through rows and rows of records. “Many may find libraries boring, but I had fun. I had fun with you, Rachel.”

Rachel gives her the Sparkler before pulling her close. “I’m glad you had fun,” her breath is a ghostly whisper against Quinn’s ears before the brunette tugs Quinn into a particular row of records at the back of the shop. “Come, I’ll show you something, Quinn.”

At the far end of the room lies an ancient piano. It’s battered and there are even lines and scratches – clearly something that had seen better days. Rachel hurries towards the piano, eagerly running her fingertips on the keys.

“I didn’t know you played the piano,” Quinn peruses as she sits beside Rachel, taking on the lower notes. She ticks a few notes, and Rachel lets out a laugh.

“There’s a lot of things no one knows about me, Quinn.”

Quinn clears her throat. “Like how we are friends?” she says, instantly regretting the words that fell out of her mouth. She pretends to find the keys so interesting and she avoids Rachel’s gaze even though she knows it’s burning holes at the side of her head. She waits for Rachel to respond, but the silence is punctuated with the high opening notes of Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune.

“I want to keep you, Quinn…”

Rachel’s hands are still in motion, and Quinn takes the lower notes easily. Rachel sighs, seemingly unable to continue. Quinn manages to take a quick look at Rachel, seeing the way her coffee eyes are intently staring at the spot where the sheet music should be.

“…but I want to keep you away from everything that could ruin this, Quinn. This, what we have. When I leave Lima, I’d like to carry memories of you that are pure and intact, wonderful and beautiful and untouched. I don’t want anyone or anything from McKinley to ruin this for us…especially from McKinley.”

Their hands are still playing the music, but each is left to their own devices.

When the shop closes a few hours later, they’re the last to leave. Rachel drives the car, and Quinn watches the stars as they drive back to Lima’s suburbs. It’s almost midnight by the time Quinn drops Rachel in front of their house. Quinn has already turned the engine off, but Rachel doesn’t make a move to get out of the car.

“I’m sorry, Quinn.”

What Rachel is apologizing for, Quinn doesn’t know – but she nods nonetheless and she feels Rachel turn towards her. Quinn mirrors the action, turning her body towards the brunette and they face each other. She wants to tell Rachel so bad that _it’s okay_ and _everything is okay_ and _she understands_ but she stays silent and she listens to her heartbeat when Rachel reaches across the console and lifts her hand to touch the side of her cheek.

“Everything I touch...they burn, Quinn. Everything burns,” a sob tears out of Rachel’s throat and Quinn gets drowned by the vulnerability behind those coffee orbs that stare right into her.

They fall into silence – a full, loaded silence. The words Quinn had beautifully crafted in her head stay lodged in her throat. The light on the front porch flickers on, and Rachel’s dad steps out of the door. The moment has passed them and they’re back to something much more real and tangible.

“I’ll see you on Monday,” Rachel says, a mask falls over her eyes and the vulnerability is now gone. She steps out of the car and Quinn has no choice but to watch Rachel and smile as the brunette waves her goodbye.

The week passes Quinn like a blur. They’ve all started their reporting on their progress for their project in Mr. Roth’s class. It surprises Quinn, that many of them have actually taken the subject and the project seriously. Even Puck and Artie had pulled their presentation off and Quinn has never been prouder.

She sits at lunch with her friends, and watching them made Quinn realize that this is the most lucid she has ever been. Her sight gravitates towards where Rachel is sitting, Finn’s arm slung comfortably around her petite shoulders.

“…throw a potato at her head, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind,” she faintly hears Santana say.

“What?” she absently says, and Puck throws a potato chip at her.

“Tubbers, you’re really fucked up,” Santana grimaces. “Puck’s been talking to you for forever. Have you ever heard anything we’ve said?”

“You’re just bored because Britt is spending lunch period with Mike perfecting their dance routine, get off my back, bitch,” Quinn mumbles angrily, but Puck throws another potato chip at her and Santana cackles like a madwoman.

Sam gives her a horrified look. “Did the aliens take control of your mind again?”

Santana rolls her eyes. “Jesus Fish Lips, you’re even more fucked up that Tubbers here. Aliens don't exist. You know what's alienating, your large trouty mouth,” she glowers at the blonde boy. Then, she turns to Quinn. “Anyway, since you're such a dumbass, I’ll kindly repeat it for you because you seem to be so out of it, eye-fucking the Hobbit, what do you plan to do on Winter Break? You guys still heading to Maryland?”

Quinn shrugs. “I guess so, Mom said we should.”

Santana seems to understand where she’s headed, and the Latina shuts up. Instead, she turns to Sam and asks what colleges he’s looking at.

“I’m not sure yet,” Sam smiles, his mouth full of burger. “It’d be nice to be close, maybe OSU. It’s just an hour or so away from home. I mean, Mom and Dad could use an extra hand, you know? Honestly, I don’t really see myself going far from home and--”

A large cheer coming from Finn’s table of friends erupts, causing many heads to turn towards the group of jocks. The lunch monitor glares at them and moves towards their table, but he is held up by Dave Karofsky and Wes Adams. Karofsky smugly raises a brow at the lunch monitor, as if daring him to say something.

“Look at Percy loose his spine when it comes to Hudson’s bunch of crybabies,” Puck mutters.

Santana shrugs. “Come on, Puck. Karofsky’s not worth the time,” she says.

“Finn got into UCLA,” Sam tells them out of the blue. “He’s so pumped about it.”

“No fucking shit, he did? He can’t even tie his shoes on his own. I hear Berry does it for him,” Santana muses. She shoves a pizza slice into her mouth. “Hudson brags just about anything, Evans. Seriously, it behooves me that you’re a football player but you don’t have brains as small as your mates. Although I must say, maybe the lady lips took so much space there ain’t left for arrogance.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Finn’s not so bad, Santana. He’s actually a great guy. He’s far from perfect, but he’s actually cool. He even invites me to play games with him, even if I was a transfer student and basically an outsider. His friends who aren’t from the team, they get to hang out with him, so he’s not so much as asshole you think him to be.”

Santana grumbles underneath her breath, but their argument skews off-topic and they're talking about silly things like Star Wars and other nerdy stuff again, so Quinn knows Santana won't bite Sam's head off anytime soon. Quinn doesn’t really listen to their conversation. She’s back to staring at Rachel again, and something breaks inside her when she sees her looking at Finn like he hung the moon in the sky.

She’s blow-drying her hair in the shower when she hears the window slide open and a loud thump echoes into her room soon after. The room is dark, and she hasn’t turned the lights on just yet, so she gets out of the bathroom, the light from the bulb flooding to the dark.

“Fucking hell,” she hears the very familiar voice say.

She sees Rachel crouched low on her bedroom floor, grasping her foot and hissing through her teeth.

“Fuck,” she mutters lowly, and Quinn feels compelled to ask what happened to the other girl.

Rachel glares at her when she asks. “What does it look like, Quinn?” she grinds out. “I stubbed my toe on your dresser! Fuck, it hurts so much!” Rachel lets out another string of muffled curses as she grasps her foot.

“Jesus,” Quinn says as she runs her hand through her messy blonde hair. “You couldn’t have texted me that you’re coming over, you idiot,” she mutters as she jumps from her bed to reclaim Rachel from the floor.

Rachel glares at her, but says nothing. She’s wearing the same outfit she always wore when they head outside to do their personal vendetta -- dark, black pants and a form-fitting, black shirt. Her dark-brown hair is pulled into a tight, high ponytail.

“You can’t just barge into people’s home at night, you know. I could’ve batted you right out the window,” Quinn says.

“You don’t have a bat,” Rachel points out, a low chuckle bubbling from her throat.

Quinn glares at her. “I do have one,” she retorts. “In the hallway closet.”

“So if someone sneaks up to you at night, you’re going to run out of your room first to get your bat and then come back? Isn’t that a bit…hassle?” Rachel smiles at her. Quinn could tell that the other girl is having a field day with her.

She crosses her arms across her chest with a huff. “What could you possibly be up to now, Rachel? Couldn’t you have something else to do, oh you know, like…be busy with your new boyfriend perhaps or whatever?” she grits out slowly, and Rachel just blinks at her.

“Oh, we’re paying someone a visit tonight,” Rachel says, then she falls quiet. The pregnant pause stretches on for several seconds, and then Rachel shakes her head. “And besides, Finn’s not my boyfriend. We’re just friends with mutual feelings, or something…like that. We’re not like that…yet.”

“Well, he acts like he’s your boyfriend lately, and he did express his interest at becoming your boyfriend. And you did express interest in becoming his girlfriend, so what's there to wonder?” Quinn says. She doesn’t know why, but the bubbling, black sludge in her abdomen and the taste of acid in her mouth is back again. She tries to push them back in the corner of her mind and tries to ignore it.

“He isn’t…yet,” Rachel says. “And he’s a good guy, boyfriend material. Cute and popular and all that, the perfect ten,” she lets out a short snort. “Like I told you before, it’s not like it matters anyway. Do you know he’s going to UCLA in the fall?”

“Shocker,” Quinn deadpans, although it’s not at all intentional. “I see him parading the fact that he’s getting a scholarship with his second-rate football playing skills all over school like it’s his damn skirt, Berry. You don’t need to tell me about it, because newsflash: we all know. Heck, Carmel High probably even knows about him, too.”

“Stop that, Quinn. That’s not nice,” Rachel’s features darken, and Quinn raises her palms in front of her chest.

“Okay, fine. It’s your life. Fine,” she says as she huffs, walking towards the window and closing it. “Why didn’t you send me a damn text?”

Rachel’s face splits into a Cheshire grin, one that matched the stars in the night sky. “Oh Quinn,” she lets out a laugh. “It would ruin the surprise, silly! I’d rather not text you and let you come up with reasons not to go with me tonight.”

Quinn squirms. “Where are we headed anyway?”

Half an hour later, they’re crouched under Mrs. Mortensen’s hornbeam hedge. They’re watching the house next to Mrs. Mortensen’s, the one that belonged to the Chang family. Quinn’s legs are burning, they had walked the four blocks because Rachel had insisted on _fucking_ walking. It annoys the hell out of her that Rachel is seemingly taking her time. The TV in the Chang’s house is still running some cartoon show and there’s a sound of giggling emanating from the den.

“Tina and Mercedes are babysitting Mike’s siblings,” Rachel tells Quinn. “He broke his ankle at football practice today. I heard Coach Beiste saying that he might be off the team for a long time. I can’t imagine how difficult that may be.”

Quinn nods. Of course, she’s heard about how Finn accidentally bulldozed Mike in the football field during practice earlier day. They had all watched as Mike gets wheeled out of the field by a paramedic. “So we do justice by Mike today, huh? What is it this time?”

Rachel hums and doesn’t answer for a while. Instead, she snaps her fingers in tune to the flicking off of the porch lights in Mike’s house. When the last porch light flicks off, Rachel stands from her crouching position, stretching her legs.

“Let’s just say, someone left Mike a get-well card, his favorite chocolate chip cookies, and a beautiful 1965 football signed by the record-holder of rushing yards and Mike’s all-time favorite football player, a running back like him, Jim Brown from the Cleveland Brown.”

Quinn gapes. “But that must have cost you a limb, Rachel.”

Rachel laughs. “Technically, it cost Mike his limb . It cost me just over a grand.”

“You’re bullshitting me,” Quinn snorts.

Rachel lets out a pleasing smile, and it makes Quinn feel warm all over despite the coldness of the winter night, her eyes are now twinkling with mirth. “Oh, I swear to you I am not shitting you, Quinn Fabray. Amazon delivers.”

They round the house under the cover of darkness. Quinn is happy that the clouds have hidden the moon, otherwise it’d be harder to move around with them being easily picked out in the darkness. The TV is still running, but the kids are already nodding off their chairs. Tina is playing a game on her phone and Mercedes is listening to music, her headphones on. Rachel motions for her to follow out back, and they reach the farthest side of the house. It’s also darker in the area, obscured by Mrs. Mortensen’s hedges that needed trimming. It turns out that Mrs. Mortensen doesn’t really trim the backyard hedgerow.

“Mike’s temporary room is in the first floor,” she tells Quinn as she keys into the window lock. It clicks open, leaving Quinn impressed with Rachel’s show of lock-picking. Rachel notices this, and she smiles. “I’ll teach you sometime, at the shack. We could practice at my window or your window,” she trails off, her eyes full of hope and there’s a glimmer of _something_ Quinn could not place yet.

“…some other night,” Rachel finishes, licking her lips.

Quinn nods. “Yeah,” she breathes nasally. “Some other night. For now, we give Mike something to cheer him up,” she smiles at Rachel before they crawl their way into the room through the window.

Mike’s room is small. It’s more of a storage room rather than an actual room. Granted, this room is just a temporary one. Rachel informs her that Mike might be able to get out of the hospital in the morning, so they don’t need to hurry up as much. They place the card and the football in the middle of the bed, and they crawl back out of the window just as they had gotten in.

Once outside, they stare at the house for a good five minutes. The Chang kids are asleep, Tina is still playing her game, and Mercedes stands to turn the TV off. Then, the girl slips her headphones on, and goes back to listening to music.

Their silence is impeded by Rachel’s stomach growling.

“Hungry?” Quinn laughs out loud, momentarily forgetting that they’re not supposed to be here or seen together, and when they see Mercedes walking towards the window, Rachel grabs her by the hand and they ran across the empty street.

They’re still breathless and gasping for air when they turn down the road. Far up in the distance, they see BreadStiX. The restaurant’s blinking signage beckons them. They’re in the lull hours, when no one is seen in the diner except for the bored waiter and the cashier behind the registry sleeping. Rachel takes her hand for the second time, and they race to the diner’s entrance, their laughter tearing through the cold air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm sorry there had been a bit of a delay in updating this. I was not able to write for a few days because my day job has demanded more time and effort. Anyways, you've gone through another chapter and I am grateful for the time you have spared to continue reading this. I hope this one sparks some semblance of joy in you despite these trying times we are in.
> 
> I know that not a lot of us are okay -- and it's okay. Your feelings are valid. I hope that one one day though, it will get better. Better days has to come after this.
> 
> Please check on someone today. Ask them how they are -- how they really are. Listen to their emotions. Listen to your emotions. Let's collectively look out for each other, stay safe, and wear masks. Much love. xx
> 
> July 10, 2020 -- EDIT:  
> I am utterly devastated with what happened with Naya. Let's keep praying for her safety, pray that she returns home safe. Let's extend our prayers for the Rivera family, and most especially to Josey.


	25. After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone. I'm so sorry it took me so long to post this chapter. I've had quite a rough July, and it felt really wrong to write at all. I'm so sorry that some of you have waited for a chapter update that did not come, and I am so sorry for not giving you all a heads-up about it. I hope you still continue reading, I've been trying to get back to writing. It's hard, but I am trying to finish this. It's only a few chapters left.
> 
> I'll leave you to it. I hope you enjoy. Thanks a lot, folks. Much love. xx

Her eyelids fly open when she feels a hand on her shoulder. When she turns around, she sees Rachel’s father bent over her. His eyes are sunken, cold and gray. It’s filled with a sadness that Quinn knows so well.

_It’s a sadness she constantly sees when she looks into mirrors._

She had meant not to stay too long in Rachel’s bedroom that night. All she ever wanted was to fall asleep in Rachel’s presence. She didn’t mean to stay until morning. She didn’t mean to stay until Rachel’s father would find out.

“There’s breakfast downstairs if you’d like,” he tells Quinn softly. “It’s been your third day sneaking into Rachel’s bedroom. Don’t think I don’t know. Our house has a door, you know. In fact, there’s two if you count the one in the back,” he tries to joke, but the smile on his face doesn’t quite reach his sunken eyes.

“I’m…I’m sorry, Mr. Berry. I didn’t mean to…” the words get stuck on her throat, seemingly unable to find them. “I didn’t mean to sneak in; I just thought that if I stay here…maybe if I stay here for a little bit it wouldn’t…it wouldn’t be so easy to forget what it’s like…to be around her.”

His lower lip trembles, like the way hers does, and Quinn knows that he’s fighting back the tears. “I know, Quinn. I know what it feels like…to, to feel so close to the things that remind us of…her,” his voice trembles hoarsely.

Mr. Berry sighs and he moves over to hug her, and for the first time in a long time, Quinn lets herself fall apart and truly cry. So she wheezes and she sobs in the arms of a man whom she never knew, but one she shared her heartache with.

It’s silent in the Berry’s kitchen. Rachel’s father is across her, eating his way through a stack of pancakes. Quinn vaguely remembers the last time she had been in this room. Rachel had been alive back then.

Rachel had been in a row with Finn that day, and she walked her home. When they got home Rachel had told her that they rely mostly on take-outs so she decided to raid the Berry’s pantry and they had whipped up dinner together while dancing to old tunes in the radio. The recipes were all from scratch -- recipes she had learned from her Granny while she was in Maryland.

She feels a bit angry, looking at the fine china arranged by the wall. The wallpaper is still its faded teal, with the white flowers printed on it. She feels angry, because this **fucking** kitchen just looks the same when Rachel is alive and now **Rachel is dead**.

Quinn toys with the blueberries and the pancakes on her plate, her eyes fixed on the TV screen. There’s some random show going on, and she’s not really paying attention to the TV, either.

Mr. Berry looks at her a bit worriedly. “Is something wrong with the pancake, Quinn?”

Quinn lets out a laugh. “Not really, Mr. Berry. I just…I just remember this room exactly when she’s still here,” she croaks out hollowly. It feels wrong to say her name in a room that had seen her so alive.

“She loves blueberry pancakes,” Mr. Berry says. “When she was younger, she loved them too much, so much that even when it’s dinnertime she’d eat nothing but blueberry pancakes.”

Quinn just nods. Of course, she knows this. Rachel told her this before; when they ate pancakes drizzled in honey and maple syrup at the shack one night. Finn and Rachel had been fighting in the parking lot that day, and Quinn had wanted to make Rachel feel better.

She somehow thinks that maybe, it was when the end of the world started for the two of them – maybe it started longer than that, maybe longer than before. Rachel had been impossibly sweet that time, and incredibly pretty in the starlight. They had matched their lifelines against each other then, whispering that they’re not like all the other assholes in McKinley. She wonders, maybe that’s how black holes devour everything, in beauty and in chaos and in everything in-between.

When she’s finished, Quinn pushes her plate away and Mr. Berry picks it up and puts it in the sink. Then, he offers Quinn to drive her home. She doesn’t really want to make a fuss about it, especially that she hasn’t told her Mom that she’s spending nights in Rachel’s house, so she refuses. When Mr. Berry insists to drive her home, she tells him the whole truth.

“You should let your Mom know at least,” Rachel’s father tells her worriedly. “She’ll worry about you when she happens to walk into your room and she won’t find you there.”

She nods her head and assures Mr. Berry that she’ll tell her mother about her nightly sneak-ins into Rachel’s room. She walks away from the Berry residence, hands stuck in the pockets of her jacket.

As she gets out of the kitchen’s back door, she faintly hears Mr. Berry telling her that the spare key is under the smooth, oval stone next to the flower pots on the front yard. Then, he reminds her again about telling Judy about her trips to Rachel’s room.

She doesn’t tell Judy about it. Granted, her mother didn’t ask of her whereabouts either. She does vow to herself that she’d tell her the next time she’s going to Rachel’s, though.

She’s sitting in the shack’s deck by the mudhole again, overlooking the white-top mountains and her legs dangling from the edges of the wood. The chilly August wind tears through the afternoon, the sun painting the sky a mellow orange color.

It’s quiet, but there’s still the sound of birds and there’s the sound of waves lapping at the mudhole’s edges. Quinn tips back the bottle into her mouth. She’s glad that she already got off the court prohibition for alcohol, so she reminds herself not to get drunk too much and do something stupid.

“I thought I’d find you here,” she hears Sam shout from below her. She looks around to see if he has brought his car around, but all she sees is an identical orange bike parked next to hers.

Sam disappears from view, his heavy steps taking the steps. He breathlessly appears on the deck a few moments later, cheeks flush and chest heaving from the exertion. He gives Quinn a wicked smile before dropping his bag on the wooden floor, and he plops himself next to Quinn.

“I went to your house earlier and your mother told me you’ve gone with Santana to watch Brittany’s dance showcase in Elida. I knew you were lying right away,” he waggles an index finger at her. “Today’s their anniversary. I reckon you wouldn’t want to spend the day with them and watch them suck each other’s faces.”

Quinn just snorts at him, and gives him a light punch on the shoulder.

“Ow!” Sam mutters. “What? It’s true! No one wants to see that,” he blurts out, his overly large lips breaking into a shit-eating grin.

“Fuck you, Sam,” Quinn just glowers at the beach-blonde boy.

Sam lets out a haughty laugh, and he fumbles for his backpack. He takes two brownies carefully wrapped in foil. He takes one for himself and hands the other to Quinn. Gingerly, Quinn takes it and mumbling a whispered thanks at him. When Sam starts to wolf down through his first bite, Quinn feels compelled to do as well. So, she tears through the aluminum and started on her first bite.

“I made it myself,” Sam says almost proudly. “It’s not…it’s not enough to make you fly, you know? But it’s just good enough to give you the buzz.”

“Heh,” Quinn mutters. “Not bad, at all. It tastes actually decent,” she chews on it slowly. It’s not actually half-bad, but it’s certainly not as good as Puck’s baked goodies. She washes it down with the cheap wine and Sam whines like a toddler so she hands him the bottle too.

They’re both quiet for a while, each looking at the different parts of the quarry – Sam staring out into the treetops, Quinn staring out into the waters. Somewhere in the distance, a raven lifts itself off from the trees. They stay like that for some time, just waiting for the buzz to hit.

“I miss her,” Quinn says. The wind blows and it makes her teeth chatter. She regrets not bundling up more but then Sam is lighting a cigarette and holding up one for her so she takes it.

Sam tilts back the cheap wine and grimaces. “God, this drink is horrible.”

Quinn grabs the bottle and swishes the drink inside her mouth. It’s actually sweeter than most, but not sharp enough. It’s enough to number her mouth but not enough to numb her brain. She tries to chug it more than she should and Sam grabs the bottle from her hands.

“No…no,” Quinn says as she wipes her mouth with the back of her palm. “I don’t usually miss her. Usually, I know she’s gone, but not dead enough to actually miss her, you know what I mean?”

Sam switches the wine bottle to his other hand so Quinn doesn’t reach it. “No I don’t, actually. God Quinn, you’re losing your shit again,” he tells her.

Quinn’s hands still and they lower. Sam scoots closer to Quinn and he passes her the bottle. They go at it for a while, passing the bottle back and forth in silence. The sun sinks lowly on the horizon, and the wind goes a few degrees lower as night blankets the quarry.

“I don’t think I could ever feel like this,” she admits. Her breath hangs in the air and Sam slurs a bit but that’s just because he’s already drunk with all the alcohol inside his body. Quinn licks her parched lips to continue. “Her dying, I mean. I always thought we’d all die before her. She’d be the one who will show up, alone in our fifty-year or sixty-year anniversary homecoming or something.”

Sam snorts. “No one would even show up for our five-year anniversary, Quinn.”

“Well, that’s true too,” Quinn shrugs and they fall quiet again.

Sam takes the bottle from Quinn’s hand because she wasn’t passing it back to him. Then, he takes a swig. “Look, you just have to you know…live like she’s still here with us or something.”

“I didn’t live while she was alive, Sam.”

Quinn takes the bottle back from Sam and she drinks. Sam lies on his back and the two of them stare up at the sky. The sun is gone and the stars are so bright and the moon is like a golden egg. It’s cold and it makes her teeth chatter but the wine is lighting a fire in her belly. If things had gone right, she would’ve been with Rachel tonight and not with Sam. They would’ve snuck here anyway.

“You know, she loved the stars. I never got to ask why, maybe because she loved the way they shine and the way they burn,” she finally blurts out and Sam just cocks his head, not really sure of what to respond to it. She tips the bottle too sharply so the wine gets into her mouth and into her collar.

Everything burns.

She takes another drink because it doesn’t matter what Rachel Berry said.

Sam doesn’t answer. Instead, his eyes are closed.

“Did they find her body?” she asks Sam after sometime. He cracks one eye open and a blue eye peers at her. “Did they find out what happened? Was she too drunk and she just…I don’t know? Walked and drowned in the quarry?”

“Do you really want to know about that, Quinn?” he slurs. His eyes are unfocused and bloodshot, like they’re off-space but he wears a lopsided smile. “Let the dead be dead, Quinn. We don’t have to talk about it.”

“What do you mean?” Quinn says, the words falling off her lips slowly, deliberately.

Sam shakes his head wildly, as if trying to shake himself out of stupor. “No…nothing, Quinn. Nothing. Just leave it be. Just let it be, okay?”

Quinn rocks herself on her seat. “A lot of us were fighting. I remember that part. Santana and I, Rachel and I…Puck and Finn. You were there. You’re trying to tell everyone to stop and just chill for a second but then someone inside the house yelled fire.”

“Okay, Quinn just stop!” Sam scrambles angrily to a sitting position. “You’re a suspect because you and Rachel came here together and you were found in the water, alone. Are you listening? Jesus, listen to me Quinn, you were a suspect because you were together and no one knew what you were up to,” he scoots over to Quinn and accidentally kicks the bottle and sends it flying over the edge of the deck, and it falls with a shatter below.

Quinn leans over, trying to see whether it was the bottle that shattered, something else or her entire world. She leans over the wood and watches as the entire world around her spin and she could feel herself falling and falling but then strong arms are pulling at the fabric of her blouse and she’s falling backwards.

Sam lets out a grunt as he takes most of the brunt of the fall. Quinn stupidly grins at him and breathes into his chest – out of relief, out of exhaustion, out of anguish – Quinn doesn’t really know nor she actually cares.

But Sam…Sam and his eyes are so blue like the water, so blue like the skies, so blue like the ocean. Sam’s eyes are blue – so very, very blue.

And then Quinn finds herself kissing him. And all that she thinks about is she might be very, very drunk and that Sam tastes like marijuana and cheap wine.


	26. Before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had this chapter edited one day after the original posting date because I found conflicts on the chronological aspect of the story's timeline. There are minor changes in the new document compared to the original one, where Rachel has avoided Quinn after she shows up back at McKinley, and also the scene where Quinn gives Rachel her plane ticket.

They’re just off their plane from Maryland when she realizes Rachel has sent her a text. It wasn’t until they’re inside their taxi that she got to open and read it. Granted, it’s unusual for her to get texts from Rachel. The only time she got a text from Rachel during the Winter Break was when she told Quinn about getting the slot for her summer internship in Pasadena.

**_Pick me up in front of the Eversly’s house. Bring your car._ **

Which is how, she had managed to lie to her mother about going to Rachel’s for their school project the moment she had stepped into their front porch. And also how, she has a plane ticket and flight details scheduled in the summer for one Rachel Berry snugly fit inside a manila envelope and tucked in her car’s glove compartment. It had been convenient, to surprise Rachel with something.

When she tells her mother that she’s driving, something sparks behind Judy’s eyes. She doesn’t comment on it, but Judy looked really proud when she hands her the car keys. It’s too cold for bikes anyway.

Rachel’s sitting on the sidewalk curb by the time she pulled up at the Eversly’s, who lived two blocks away from the Berry’s residence. There’s a large duffel bag beside her and Quinn could tell the brunette is freezing. Rachel hurries inside the car, tossing her duffel bag into the back of Quinn’s car. She huddles herself on the passenger seat, and Quinn turns the heater a bit higher.

“Higher,” Rachel shivers, her breaths coming out in white puffs of air. “I get cold really fast and it’s freezing out there.”

Quinn shrugs. “Sorry.”

“What took you so long?” Rachel mutters at no one in particular, and she leans back on the seat before rubbing her palms together and shoving them into the pockets of her coat. “You know what, never mind. Just drive to the mudhole, Quinn.”

“Wait,” Quinn mutters before she fumbles around the glove compartment for the envelope. When she finds it, she hands it to Rachel wordlessly. The brunette rifles around it, and when she discovers it, her eyes turn wide.

“Quinn this…th-this is a plane ticket,” Rachel mutters, and Quinn just nods. “For Pasadena. For the summer.”

“Yeah,” Quinn shrugs, almost nonchalantly. “I…uh…I thought I’d buy you a Christmas present. I figured out it’s something that’ll take you to that one place you’d really like to go.”

“But this must have cost you a ton!”

“Just a few hundred,” Quinn says. “Look, it’s okay, Rachel. It’s something I wanted to do…and I saved up for it so it’s not—” she tells Rachel, but the brunette cuts her off by hugging her tight.

“Thank you, Quinn…” Rachel whispers. It seems so soft, so soft and Quinn thinks nothing of it, or the way the brunette’s hot breath is ghosting on her ear or the wetness in Rachel’s eyes that damps the right side of her temple. Instead, she focuses her vision on Rachel’s hands as she puts the envelope back to the glove compartment.

“I’ll let you hold on to that until later,” Rachel tells her. “For now, let’s get out of here.”

It doesn’t take them long to reach the old quarry. The mudhole is lightly iced at the edges, giving them a white-rimmed perimeter. It’s quiet and there’s just the faint lapping of waves in the mudhole against the icy shore. They’re sitting on the wooden deck at the second floor of the shack, wrapped up in sleeping bags and thick fleece coats. Rachel had made a fire in the fireplace, and Quinn is really thankful for the warmth. The cheap whiskey is doing a really good job at keeping them warm, too.

“I think the water is rising,” Rachel drinks from the bottle.

Quinn chortles down a laugh. “No, Rachel. It isn’t.”

“No it is,” Rachel argues. “Look at it, the waterline is rising.”

It really isn’t, but Quinn doesn’t want to argue with Rachel so she just concedes. She takes the bottle from Rachel’s hands and drink. The water isn’t rising, she tells herself. She tells herself, it’s just Rachel being Rachel.

She would’ve asked what Rachel meant by it, but the brunette is already lying on the ground already, her eyes fixed on the starry skies, tracing lazy patterns on the denim of Quinn’s thigh.

Quinn’s brow furrows. “Are you drunk, Rachel?”

Through hazy eyes, Rachel looks at her. “No,” she grins. “Are you?”

Quinn is quiet. Her vision is actually blurred and her senses are muddled. The world spins every time she tries to turn her head around, but she shakes her head to Rachel and she tells her she feels fine.

“Liar,” Rachel tells her before curling up to Quinn’s side, presumably to keep herself warm. “Do you know Virginia Woolf killed herself by putting rocks in the pockets of her coat and then jumping to the Thames?”

Quinn means to tell Rachel that no, she doesn’t know about it, but she feels Rachel’s hot breath on her neck and it’s not long before Rachel’s breaths become an even pattern and Quinn knows Rachel has fallen asleep. Her eyes feel a little heavy too, so Quinn tries to make the most comfortable position she could get _without waking Rachel up_ and tries to close her eyes.

She must have fallen asleep because it’s a bit colder and the moon’s already gone the next time she opens her eyes. The fire had also gone out and there’s nothing but embers and ash in the fireplace. Rachel is also leaned over her, as if studying her – but not in a really creepy way.

“You look so peaceful when you sleep,” Rachel whispers. “Like I didn’t want to wake you up.”

She doesn’t really know what to say to it, so instead, she sits up and rubs her arm. “It’s late, don’t you want to go home or something?”

Rachel shakes her head. “I want to spend the night here, Quinn. Come cuddle with me so we don’t die of hypothermia or freeze our asses off to death. We really should’ve kept that fire going in that goddamn fireplace, Quinn.”

Grumbling, Quinn fetches a few logs outside while Rachel builds the fire in the fireplace. Its warmth radiates around the small room, and Rachel had pried another floorboard to reveal some Canadian whiskey. They doubled their sleeping bags because Rachel is small enough so they could fit in one and she spoons the brunette to keep her warm as they lean on the wall close enough to the fireplace.

“This is cool, isn’t it?” Rachel asks for some time. “It’s wonderful. I hope this stays like this. Us, I mean. Center of the Universe, you know?”

Quinn just hums. She must have fallen asleep again because when she opens her eyes, Rachel is no longer by her side. On a fit of panic, she rushes outside, almost catching herself on the first step and falling face-first on the stair’s landing.

Rachel stands in the middle of the pearl-white limestone, eyes fixed to the skies.

“What do we have here?” Rachel asks softly, her voice quiet and scratchy and Quinn feels the need to do a double-take because she didn’t catch the words right. When the brunette notices it, she just laughs.

It’s just the sky, really. Above them are just the dustings of stars and the empty bowl of darkness. Quinn is about to tell Rachel it’s just the empty sky but then Rachel is spreading her arms and she’s full-on laughing.

“I feel it now, Quinn. The sky, it’s falling…the sky is falling and the water is rising and my lungs are hurting,” she tells Quinn between her wet laughter. Her eyes are shining in glee and Quinn doesn’t get why Rachel is laughing. “Don’t you feel it Quinn? The sky is falling and my lungs are too small for something so big. Don’t you feel it? The world is growing bigger and bigger and bigger and there’s nothing to hold on to.”

It’s then that Quinn realizes it: Rachel’s eyes are bright but they’re tired. She stands there like she doesn’t know what to do, like she doesn’t belong anywhere except here and she’s tired. It’s then that she realizes she and Rachel just work because they’re living in a world full of empty spaces and neither of them could find a place to fit in and there is no other way to truly fit in except with each other.

“The sky is falling,” Rachel says before she lets her hands fall to her sides, fingers curling awkwardly, like she doesn’t know what to do with it. Rachel Berry – the girl who is so sure of the world, of everything around her. And yet, Quinn realizes that _her Rachel Berry_ is a girl who doesn’t know what to do with her hands.

Her sadness is everything. Quinn catches the way Rachel’s breath hitches, the way she stiffens and the way her brown eyes flicker when she tries to hide it. Quinn reaches for her hand and she wraps her fingers around Rachel’s, matching their lifelines together like they often did on countless times.

“That’s not true,” Quinn croaks this time, but Rachel launches herself at her.

“No,” Rachel whispers against Quinn’s chest.

Rachel presses herself _hard_ unto Quinn’s body – so hard that Quinn could feel Rachel’s heartbeat bleeding into hers. “Quinn, I need you to promise me something,” she says, immediately unwinding herself against Quinn’s body.

Quinn wants to let her know that whatever it is, it’s okay. They’re okay. Instead, the words get stuck on her throat so she cradles Rachel into her body again, the top of Rachel’s head encased beneath her jaw, her throat bobbing against Rachel’s temple.

“Anything, Rachel. And everything,” she whispers brokenly too, because the flood of starlight in Rachel’s eyes just _aches_ and she knows she’s treading on dangerous waters and she closes her eyes.

Rachel doesn’t show up on Monday morning at school. She doesn’t show up on Tuesday and Wednesday. In fact, it feels like Rachel had fallen off of earth and left no one to know about it.

Quinn doesn’t talk about it to her friends – it’s against their rule of not getting found out. There’s an absence in Rachel’s table at lunch as well, but it’s not as pronounced as the one felt in Quinn’s being.

On Wednesday, Quinn gives in to the temptation to call the brunette. Her hands are hovering above the caller ID until she musters up enough strength to actually call her. Which, when she does, goes straight to voicemail. That night, she stays up in bed wondering if she should just walk to the Berry’s household, but then she decides against it.

She’d give it at least until Friday. Rachel doesn’t show up that week. Or in the week the followed after that. A full week passes and Rachel doesn’t show up. However, in the week after that, Rachel does show up at school, but it feels as if she has been actively ignoring and avoiding Quinn altogether.

Quinn has learned not to look out for Rachel in the hallways, she has learned not to look out for Rachel in any of her classes, and most importantly, she has schooled herself not to look out for Rachel in the middle of the night.

Which is why, it makes her jump when she hears Rachel’s voice in the parking lot one afternoon in late March, shrill and venomous, and there’s Finn arguing back at her. She doesn’t really want to overhear it, but she has to get to her car which is conveniently parked just opposite of the spot Finn’s Rover is parked.

She watches as Rachel get out of Finn’s car, face full of the wrath of thunder, her tanned legs taking long strides _away_ from Finn’s car and out of the school. Finn revs the engine of his Rover, pebbles splattering all across the parking lot. He reverses and then revs the engine again, skidding out and peeling into the road.

Quinn drives slow to follow the quick-striding midget walking down the street. Rachel’s face is puffing and her chest is heaving by the time she had caught up with the brunette.

“Hey,” she calls at Rachel and the brunette snaps her head towards Quinn.

Immediately, Rachel’s eyes soften. “Hey, Quinn. I’m…I’m sorry you had to see that.”

Quinn shrugs. “Yeah, my Mom and Dad used to fight a lot. It’s not...it’s not like it’s my business anyways…to uh, you know, stick my nose into what you’re fighting about and everything. Uh…can I give you a ride home?”

Rachel chews on her bottom lip and doesn’t answer. It’s reaction enough for Quinn to park the car and let the brunette in.

It’s the first time she’s in Rachel’s room. It’s all pink and glitters and there’s a shrine of what Quinn thinks is a plethora of Broadway memorabilia and trinkets that has anything to do with a musical.

“I never knew you had a taste for music,” Quinn mutters.

Rachel chuckles. “Like I said before, there are many things a lot of people don’t know about me at all.”

“We should cook dinner,” Quinn mutters out of the blue. “I mean, I know you said you rely on take-outs, but for a change today. Let’s cook dinner. Together.”

Rachel’s eyes light up. “Pancakes! I love pancakes. Breakfast food for dinner.”

Quinn laughs. “Breakfast food it is.”

Friday. Lunchroom.

Quinn watches as Rachel storm out in anger out of the packed school cafeteria. The girls at her table had their heads bent, whispering to each other. She cranes her neck high enough just in time to see Rachel disappear down the hallway leading to the parking lot.

She had picked the girl up earlier during the day, and had dropped her off at the Starbucks two blocks away from school so they could avoid being seen together. Quickly, Quinn gathers her stuff and stands from her seat.

“Ow, what the hell Tubbers, where the fuck you’re going?” Santana asks incredulously at her, perfect eyebrows raised and long fingernails tapping at the linoleum table, demanding an answer, demanding a lie.

“I…I forgot something in my car,” Quinn hurries out. It surprises her how the lie falls so easily. “I’ve to get it for AP Bio.”

Santana shrugs. Quinn leaves the Latina and her friends on their table, the boys not really giving it any mind, but Santana casts her a murderous glare before she turns down the hallway leading to the parking lot.

“Rachel,” she calls at the brunette bent over the wirings underneath her steering wheel.

Rachel yelps, dropping her phone in the process. Quinn picks it up and looks at the Google window that reads: HOW TO HOTWIRE A CAR.

“Are you trying to steal my car?” Quinn asks.

Rachel sighs. “Yeah,” she rolls her eyes before grabbing her phone back from Quinn’s hand. “But it’s harder and a lot more complicated than those chick flicks they show at the drive-in.”

And then Quinn is laughing, and Rachel is laughing with her and for a moment the world rights itself and Quinn doesn’t feel like the sky is falling at all. “Get in the car, Rachel. You’re shit at being sneaky during the day.”

Rachel slides into the passenger seat. “Center of the Universe?”

“Sure,” Quinn turns the ignition on and they pull out of the parking lot. She doesn’t really care if they’re ditching school, it’s not like it matters anyway. McKinley High can suck it. Santana can suck it. Everyone can suck it.

Quinn drives in silence, all the while taking glances at Rachel. The brunette is intent on studying her palms. Then Rachel is staring ahead, glaring at the universe. Rachel curls into a ball, hugging herself. She clutches herself so tightly that her nails are digging on her arms.

Quinn drives farther into the abandoned quarry and closer to the waterline. She steps out of the car and tries her hardest to close the door as quietly as possible. Rachel, on the other hand, gets out of the car with a slam. She rushes to the water, sending a spray of pebbles onto the icy shore.

She shoves her hands into the pockets of her coat and gives a grisly look at the water. “You know Quinn, I think this is ugly. The universe and its center is just so ugly.”

Quinn doesn’t answer. She just hums. She doesn't really know what to say to the brunette.

“It’s a fucking pile of shit,” Rachel continues. She picks up a pebble and throws it into the water. Ice crackles before it sinks down to the dark depths. She takes another pebble and tosses it to the water. “Just. Fucking. Piles. Of. Shit.”

Quinn stands a few feet away from Rachel, hands slack at her side as she watches Rachel digging her hands on the pebbles, digging in and pulling out. Rachel grabs, she throws, she kicks the pebbles into the water. Rachel does it over and over again and she must have torn a skin or two because there’s a bright-red gash on her left palm but she doesn’t stop digging and throwing the pebbles into the icy water.

She doesn’t really notice when Rachel started crying, and she doesn’t but Rachel’s eyes are red and then Quinn feels hot tears on her cheeks too and she stops seeing the world and all she sees is just Rachel and she’s screaming and broken, broken, broken. Rachel slips on her feet and lands on the ground, still clawing at the pebbles and the rocks underneath her.

“Rachel, what are you – Rachel, what the hell? Rachel, stop – just fucking stop. Rachel, stop! Rachel --”

Rachel burrows herself on Quinn’s coat the moment Quinn sits next to her. She rocks Rachel softly, slowly. The hot tears are making a trail through Rachel's bronzed cheeks, burning a gaping hole through Quinn's coat, seeping into the fabric. It burns on Quinn's skin -- it burns, it burns, it burns.

“God,” she sobs, snot and tears and spit mixing together and soaking the front area of Quinn’s winter coat. “God damn it all, Quinn.”

Quinn puts her chin on top of Rachel’s head, kissing it softly. “What’s wrong?” she asks the brunette quietly. “Tell me what’s wrong, Rachel.”

“No…” Rachel chokes.

Quinn watches Rachel, trying to meet the other girl’s eyes but Rachel would look at anywhere but _**her eyes**_. So she leaves it at that. She just holds Rachel in her arms and they sit on the rocks by the water.

She just wishes that Rachel would talk about it.

She knows Rachel wouldn’t talk about it.

So she just leaves it at that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's August, and the hollow here hasn't gone away. I can't believe it's almost a month after they found her body and I am still not over it. For a person who actually loved words and lived for them, I sure do have no words to name let alone explain the black feeling that has settled my chest. I don't expect it to happen anytime soon.
> 
> Sometime around the end of July, I lost my dog. He's been sick for three days and on the third day, he just...went. Shut off like a light. I suspected it was parvovirus (as did the vets), but he's had his shots when he was a puppy and he's already two years old. I have no idea where he could've possibly gotten the virus if that was the case, as my dog does not go out of the house unless he is with adult human supervision.
> 
> I just think that somehow, he has left this world because he had more important things to take care of. Maybe perhaps he could watch over her. I comfort myself of the thought that he could be with her now, and I've always watched out for the two of them among the stars up in the heavens. It's folly, I suppose -- but no one really knows. It's a comforting thing to look up to the skies at night and wonder...could they ever see us, and hear our thoughts as we miss them, as we miss her?
> 
> Anyway, forgive me for yammering too much. I hope you have enjoyed what I have dished out for you this week. If you think I could improve my writing, or if you appreciate what I've done, you can let me know through the comments section. Leave a kudos if you'd like, I would appreciate all of it. 
> 
> As a final note, please keep the ones you love close and let them know how much they matter. Stay safe, peace and light to all. xx


	27. After

She totally forgets about the kiss – until Sam mentions it.

He’s hanging out in her room, playing another deathmatch round of Infinity Operatives. They’re waiting for the game to load when Sam calls her name and his eyes are no longer focused on the screen but on her face instead.

“Quinn, there’s something I’d like to ask about Rachel and you. I mean…I know, you’re not friends and all at school and you don’t talk at all except for that one time you have a project at Mr. Roth’s class…” he starts to ask softly, as though if he’d say the words a little bit louder, Quinn would break into a thousand pieces.

Quinn watches as Sam shrivel underneath her gaze.

“I just…I don’t know, I just thought that maybe it’s…weird you weren’t talking but you’re hanging out with her and you were with her when you both stole Finn’s car at the party,” Sam says.

“And…and when you kissed me at the quarry…I don’t know…it was because of Rachel, wasn’t it?”

Quinn’s hands still themselves over the console, suddenly clammy and sweaty and the room suddenly feels oddly cold. She had a similar feeling once, when she tried to cheat on Mrs. Wallace’s class during freshman year and she was caught red-handed.

Quinn flounders miserably, hot tears welling up in her eyes and scalding the surface of her cheeks. She hurriedly tries to wipe the shamed tears away, but Sam’s warm arms pull her close and she cries on his chest.

“I…” she chokes out a sob, shaking her head, her eyes tightly shut and her hands fisting the fabric of Sam’s shirt. “She…was beautiful, wonderful – everything and…I…lo--” she cries out. There’s nothing she could say really, nothing to change the fact that Rachel is gone and that truth eclipses everything.

Suddenly it gets harder to breathe.

She feels Sam’s warm lips on the crown of her head, cooing soft, comforting sounds. He holds her and rocks her until she could control her breathing a little bit better. Sam is the first to pull away, and he lifts the locks of blonde hair that covered her eyes. He holds her face inside his palms.

“Everything’s going to be alright, okay? Everything will be okay,” he whispers. “I promise,” he adds before he lightly kisses the curve of her brows and smoothing out the strained lines around her tear-filled eyes. He rocks her slowly until she finally calms down.

“Quinn,” he says. “There’s something I want to ask your help with.”

The night is warm and lovely, full of stars and there’s a sliver of the moon sinking low on the horizon. The four of them are sitting around the bright, merry fire just outside the shack by the mudhole, each of them holding a bottle of beer.

“This is really cool,” Santana mutters as she curls to Brittany’s side, tipping the bottle into her mouth and taking a swig. “I didn’t know the stars could be this bright here, you know. Thought it’d be just rocks and all that.”

It had been Sam’s idea – all of them to spend the night in the shack. He brought pizza and Santana brought beer. It kind of bummed them though, that Puck’s not returning any of their calls or their texts.

“Yeah, but we’re one man short,” Sam shrugs. “Any of you heard from Puck?”

The girls shake their head, at a loss. Puck had just dropped off the grid. He did not leave them a text or a call or an e-mail or even a Hangout chat _at all_. Santana even staked out Lima’s local Temple to see if Puck shows up with his family. It's just Debbie Puckerman and Puck's kid sister Sarah who had been going to Temple all the time Santana has spent her days there.

“I went to Puck’s house yesterday,” Quinn mutters, and everyone’s attention is turned to her. “Debbie said Puck called her a few nights ago, telling her he’s in Cincinnati and he’s doing well. He promised he’ll be back home soon.”

“Oh, that’s…” Sam sighs. “That’s really great, you know.”

“Yeah,” Quinn says absently, her mind not really on the matter. The tears are pricking at the sides of her eyes and she hates how she can’t seem to stop crying lately. She reminds herself to tell her therapist about it. There’s a loaded silence between the four of them and it’s Brittany that points it out for all of them.

“What’s wrong, Quinn?” Brittany asks softly, her hands untangling themselves from Santana’s as she moves over to Quinn’s side.

“Nothing. I…uh…I just thought about it, about Puck,” she sighs. “I don’t think he can ever bear to stay in Lima anymore. It’s too much, staying here.”

Brittany nods. “I understand, Quinn. It’s too much to stay here I suppose. With everything, you know? I mean…sometimes I drive past her house and I feel so awful, or when I see the red roof of McKinley from my bedroom, I feel so…hollow.”

“Yeah, it feels like…Rachel had been the heartbeat of this town,” Sam mutters. “And when she left this town is never the same again.”

“I just…” Quinn sighs, taking in all of their faces illuminated by the firelight. She catches Santana’s gaze. “I mean, all of what’s around us right now is essentially my last thread to Rachel’s existence. I just…I just don’t think I could be able to live here for the rest of my life…but I can’t imagine leaving this place, too.”

She stays awake later that night, unable to fall asleep. Her memories have been recurring to her lately. The most pronounced of these memories are the ones from the party, when Finn is screaming at her about how she’s ruined everything. Rachel is screaming at her to stop and Puck is punching Finn in the face. Santana is screaming at her for an unknown reason. Sam is screaming at the to stop fighting and Brittany is crying and begging them to stop.

Sometimes the memories keep her awake. Sometimes the memories wake her in the middle of the night. Sometimes, they come in dreams. Other times, they come as snippets, like wayward scenes from an old movie she’s trying to remember, like tendrils of smoke she’s trying to keep in her hands.

Sam is snoring in his sleeping bag and Brittany is cuddled close to Santana, equally snoring. Santana’s breathing is even, indicating that she’s asleep, but only shallow. Ever since she had slept with them the first time during freshman year’s cheer camp, she had known Santana’s a light sleeper.

She tiptoes her way out of the shack, grabbing a bottle of vodka as she slips into her shoes. She breaths in the cold air of the night as she opens the wooden door with a creak. She turns around to check if she has awoken anyone, and Sam rustles in his spot. Thankfully, he just turns his back to the door and goes back to sleep.

She comes close to the waterline and she removes her shoes and socks. She hikes her pants up and she lets the water soak her ankles. The tears come unbidden, and she wonders if this is what’s it like when you lose someone you’ve truly and irrevocably loved.

She had loved Rachel with all her heart.

She hates the universe for taking Rachel from her so early on. She hasn’t even come to terms on _what_ Rachel is to her.

“Hey.”

Quinn almost jumps out of her skin and the vodka bottle falls with a splash. “Shit,” she curses as she picks up the bottle, but doesn’t really mean it. A string of apologies falls from Santana’s mouth and she asks Quinn if the bottle had broken.

“No, San. The…the bottle is fine,” Quinn lets out a relieved breath. “You just scared me is all. I thought you were asleep.”

Santana shrugs. “Sam turns in his sleeping bag every damn five minutes. So when I found your bag empty, I figured out I’d find you here.”

She figures out that it’s not really Sam who woke Santana up, but she lets it go. Instead, she climbs on the boulder by the water and she pats the spot next to it. Santana slips out of her shoes, putting it next to Quinn’s. She sits next to Quinn.

“There’s a lot of stars out here, who knew…” Santana mutters softly, leaning her head on Quinn’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Quinn hums, uncapping the vodka bottle and offering it to Santana. “You know, Rachel loved them. When we’re here, before…she’d always wonder what their lives could be like, if they could see us or something. If they also had planets revolving around them, what could beings be like from those planets. Do they share the same hopes and fears we have? Are they aware they're slowly dying? She always wondered what’s it like to see a star die.”

“I know,” Santana tells her, accepting the bottle from Quinn. “That’s so Rachel Berry,” she says before taking a swig.

Quinn laughs bitterly and Santana laughs with her.

“But you know what, Quinn…” Santana starts when their laughter dies down. “My grandfather told me when people die, they take to the skies. They become stars, always looking down on us, in perpetuity, ever faithful to keeping an eye on the ones left in here.”

Quinn looks up. Through teary eyes, the stars break into a thousand little pieces. “I don’t know if…if I can think like that.”

Santana snorts, taking a drink from the bottle again. “Go pick the brightest star out there, Quinn. That’s Berry anyway.”

Santana passes her the bottle and she takes it. Back and forth, back and forth – the two of them drink to their sorrow, to each her own. Quinn doesn’t say anything more and Santana doesn’t say anything more. It’s a comfortable silence.

Sometime during the night, she must have blacked out because the next time she opens her eyes, she’s already curled up in her sleeping bag with a blanket and there’s the smell of bacon and coffee permeating the air. The eastern sky has now broken in a thousand shades of sunrise, and a slat of yellow light falls onto her face.

“Hey, good morning,” Santana lies on her side at the spot across her, eyes heavy-lidded with sleep and hazy-drunk from the alcohol. “Sam and Britt are making breakfast outside. You were pretty knocked after that special peach vodka. How’s your head feeling?”

“Light,” Quinn mutters, although she’s not sure if she’s talking about her head or she’s talking about the sun.

_Rachel._

When Santana told her to pick out the brightest star in the sky, she automatically thought of the sun. After all, Rachel was and is her Sun, and the sun is the brightest star in the sky.

“Come on,” Santana lifts herself from her makeshift bed. “I’ll help you up.”

She accepts Santana’s hand and the two of them step outside the shack, walking towards the area where Sam has a folding table spread and filled with breakfast food. Brittany hands her a mug of steaming coffee and kissed her on the cheek with a good morning stuck between her strawberry-smelling lips. Sam smiles at her as he turns the bacon in the pan.

“That smells like heaven's fat, Guppy Face. Now hurry up because me and Quinn here, we needs our breakfast now,” Santana sits on one of the tree stumps around the table. Sam just chuckles and tells her to wait.

Brittany slides a plate of dried fruit in front of her and Santana steals away her dried apples, but Quinn doesn’t mind. A sliver of sunshine falls across her face and she relishes in the warmth it brings.

 _Rachel_.

She thinks to herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello beautiful people! Thank you for reading this chapter. How does this chapter make you feel? Do you have a feeling that we're getting closer to uncovering the truth about what really happened? Please leave a comment and let me know.
> 
> If you have anything to say on the story, or if you appreciate what I've done, you can let me know through the comments section. Leave a kudos if you'd like, I appreciate all of it. Follow me on Twitter @artisturtle and I'll follow you back so we can be friends.
> 
> Stay safe, keep your distance, wear a mask. Be kind to all. Peace and Light. xx


	28. Before

She hears the news on her second period a few weeks later. Mercedes Jones and Kurt Hummel are sitting right in front of her at Mr. Markus’ Geography class when Mercedes leans close to Kurt and ask him how Finn is doing.

“He’s doing fine,” Kurt shrugs. “Bummed that Rachel had broken off things with him, but he’s…taking it all in stride.”

“Is it true Rachel left him because he’s small down there?” Mercedes asked. “I heard the boys saying that they tried to do the deed but Rachel freaked out in the middle of it and ran off.”

The hairs on the back of her neck rise out of spite, and she’s ready to claw her way into Mercedes’ face but Mr. Markus beats her to it and snaps at the two gossiping little shits in front of her.

She watches Rachel, who’s sitting across the room – eyes plastered on the board, concentration written all over her face. Her knuckles are turning white at how tightly she’s gripping her pen as she takes down the notes. Finn is sitting with the jocks at the back of the room, seemingly clueless about the lesson Mr. Markus is teaching.

When the bell rings, she tries to catch Rachel as she hurries out of the classroom. She doesn’t get much room because Kurt and Mercedes are taking so long to get out of the aisle and are blocking the way. She mutters a curse when she hears the chairs at the back scraping as the jocks make their way out of the room.

She hurries to Rachel’s locker, and being naturally taller and has longer legs than the brunette she catches up to Rachel as she’s pulling her textbooks out of her locker. The girl’s eyes are still wearing that same steely focus like the one she sported in the classroom, but now, she refuses to look at anyone.

“Hey,” Quinn leans on the metal door next to Rachel’s locker. The steely eyes look up at her once, and the walls built miles and miles high momentarily disappear and Rachel Berry with the star-eyes is back again.

Then there’s Finn Hudson, leaning on the other side and Quinn mutters another false excuse but Rachel holds her up for a while and turns to Finn, smiling at him sweetly before talking to Quinn.

“Meet me in the library at study hall today because I want to talk to you about our project. It’s coming together nicely and just the finishing touches are needed and we need to finish it this week so we could get extra credits for turning it in earlier than the submission date, okay?”

Quinn just nods. Finn gives her a lopsided smile that makes her reel back, but she doesn’t. Slowly, she backs off the two of them, and she hugs her textbooks tight before she heads to her next class. As she turns down the hall, she chances to see Finn pin Rachel into the lockers as he kisses her, her hand dangerously low, too close to his crotch.

The image burns in her mind all throughout the morning.

When the bell rings, Quinn steps into study hall. She skims over the heads of the seniors, taking note of where Rachel might be. Finally, she sees her hidden behind an alcove of shelves and books right by the farthest window of the hall.

“Hey,” she skirts around Rachel, as the brunette has that concentration written all over her face again. Rachel looks up, and her face brightens at the sight of her. Quinn lowers herself on the seat next to Rachel’s.

“Hey Quinn,” Rachel mutters. “Today should be Ditch Day.”

“What?”

Rachel smiles, leaning over the table and taking Quinn’s hands in hers. “Ditch Day, when we ditch school and do stuff we want to do,” looking as though Quinn is a five-year old who needs explaining on how to wear her shoes the right way.

“But…we already ditched school. Countless times actually,” Quinn tries to reason, and Rachel rolls her eyes amusedly.

“Oh Darling, those were accidents. Emergencies,” Rachel retracts her hand and folds it primly in front of her, her pose regal and strikingly magnanimous. “Today’s a little bit different.”

_Darling._

Frannie is the only one who called her that. Frannie, the only person who had loved her unconditionally, the only home she knew throughout her childhood. Rachel seems oblivious to this fact, because Rachel’s already gathering her things already and shoving them into her bag.

When Rachel stands, she stands as well. “I’ll go with you,” she says, her tone firm and resolute.

It’s a pretty mellow afternoon, the smell of spring is full and summer is just around the corner. They take to Jackson Street, turning left to McKibben Street, and then they continue northward to West Street before turning left to Robb Avenue. It takes them around fifteen minutes to get there, and another five minutes to find a parking space. They had to park on the far side of the road, and they had to walk for another five minutes just to get to Old Navy.

“I’m just buying a jacket,” Rachel mutters. “A coat, maybe something yellow.”

“Does it have to be something that’s yellow?” she asks the girl as they step into Old Navy, the waft of cold, air-conditioned air hitting Quinn squarely in the face. She halts her eye-roll mid-pace and winces.

Rachel grins at her. “Of course!” she glides along the floor, flitting through the rack of trench coats that are a tad pricey for Quinn’s taste. She rifles through the coat hangers, fingertips flitting across the lapels of clothing. “Because life’s candy and the sun’s a ball of butter, Quinn Fabray. Always, always remember such.”

Quinn hears Rachel humming the tunes of Don’t Rain on My Parade underneath her breath. She could barely make out the words but she knows Rachel is singing “life’s candy and the sun’s a ball of butter…” to herself.

“Here,” Quinn picks out a yellow multi-pocketed trench coat that costs around fifty bucks and she holds her out to Rachel to see. “It’s a bit on the pricey side, but I think it’ll look really good on you.”

Rachel takes the trench coat from Quinn’s hands and peruses it. Quinn moves on to the next design, this one a shade darker than the first, and she holds her up to Rachel to examine as well.

“I like the first one better,” Rachel says thoughtfully. “I should take it. Let’s go pay then we’ll head to Auntie Anne’s. I’m buying you lunch,” the brunette says as she takes Quinn’s hand and the blonde dutifully follows Rachel around the clothing store.

Rachel presents the cashier with a credit card. Once they paid, they go around the mall, perusing at various products. Then, they head to Auntie Anne’s to buy themselves pretzels. Quinn is quick to ask for vegan versions of the pretzels, much to Rachel’s delight. They eat the pretzels in Rachel’s car, downing it in hot tea (for Rachel) and coffee (for Quinn).

Later on, as they’re making their way home, there’s a bit of traffic as Hobby Lobby is holding some sort of art showcase. So, in true Rachel Berry fashion, Rachel takes a left instead of a right, and parks the car right next to the large signboard written with: **WELCOME TO THE FIFTH ANNUAL LIMA, OHIO HOBBY LOBBY ART SHOWCASE FEATURING THE WORKS OF JOHNNY PEG** in very bold, very black letters on a field of psychedelic multi-color backgrounds. For an art showcase, their event poster looks like someone had just smattered blobs of paint across the board.

“Uh…” Quinn drawls, almost pretty sure they’re not supposed to be here. “I don’t think we’re supposed to be here.”

“That’s nonsense! Stuff like these are open for everyone who’d like to appreciate a little bit of art,” Rachel mutters, gripping her hand rather comfortably, and marches right into the entrance of Lima’s Hobby Lobby store.

The entire space has been transformed into an artisanal gallery, tall rafters pegged with artificial lighting, flooding the entire room with yellow light. Everyone in the room are either dressed formally or casually, making Quinn and Rachel stand out in their usual school clothes.

“And guess what’s the best things about these showcases, Quinn…” Rachel leans over Quinn’s shoulder as if she’s whispering something that involves a tad bit of conspiracy. “They have free wine,” she tells Quinn as if it’s a felony to speak about it out loud.

“But we’re in high school!” Quinn almost groans, and Rachel unceremoniously covers her mouth with a hand.

“Quiet!” Rachel hisses at Quinn and Quinn gets the itching urge to bite at the brunette’s hand but she doesn’t. “We’re not in high school, Quinn. We’re college kids just visiting our parents. You and I moved to New York after our graduation day last year and we’ve always been there since then. We just came here because our mothers are best friends who have the same birthday and we’re just here enjoying and trying to have a good time.”

Quinn makes a mumbling sound, but Rachel doesn’t take her hand away from Quinn’s mouth. “Do you understand me, Quinn?”

Quinn nods her head furiously and it’s only then that Rachel lets go if her mouth. The blonde girl glares daggers at Rachel – who only just returned her glares with a wide, bright smile. Then, Rachel takes her hand and they walk through the first row of paintings.

Most of the paintings hung on the wall are abstracted works, various shades of color smattered along the walls. A waiter carrying a tray of champagne flutes offers them a drink, and the girls don’t turn down any. They also have some artisanal cheese which has a name that either girls couldn’t pronounce.

“It looks like a field of sunflowers,” Rachel tells them as they come across a large painting leaning on the farthest wall of the gallery.

“It looks like yellow cat shit that someone smattered all over the wall,” Quinn mutters as she swallows the last of her drink. Another waiter fills their flutes up and Quinn mumbles a quiet ‘thanks’ to the boy.

“What a very astute observation,” an older lady wearing a mink coat with jewels dangling from her ears stands not far from the two of them, grinning at Quinn. “This painting was made by Johnny years ago, for a girl she met in New York. I forgot the name, but my son said she reminded him of sunflowers during summertime.”

Quinn feels her face burn, and it’s not entirely a welcome feeling. “Oh…” she stammers, not really sure how to form her sentence, not really sure if she had offended someone unintentionally, or she had done something akin to a felony. Is it offensive to make poop jokes on somebody’s work of art? She didn’t mean it anyway.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” she starts, she watches as the lady takes a drink from her coupe. “I didn’t mean it like…that. It’s…cat shit is beautiful in its own right,” she mutters and the older lady laughs rather dreamily. In the side of her vision, she could see that Rachel is trying her hardest not to laugh.

“No worries,” the lady squeezes Quinn’s right bicep tightly before she walks down the hall, the train of her dress flowing like sin on the floor of the room. Quinn watches the lady and she lets her shoulders sag in relief.

Rachel sidles up close to her, standing on her toes so she could lean forward and whisper at Quinn’s ear. “Do you know that the champagne coupe from was molded from Marie Antoinette’s left breast? She did it so that her court could eternally drink to her health.”

“Is that so?” Quinn asks. “Too bad she lost her head.”

Just as Rachel is about to answer, a burly man who’s wearing a suit makes their way towards them, bumping through guests and profusely apologizing. Rachel takes notice, and she takes Quinn’s hand in hers.

“Uh…Quinn, I think it’s time we go,” Rachel says as they weave through the throng of people. “I have a feeling that we’re going to be kicked out of here if we don’t get out of here by ourselves.”

They hurry back to the makeshift bar and put their champagne glasses back, but on second thoughts and on the spur of the moment, Quinn turns on her heel and just marches outside, champagne glass shoved deep into her pockets.

The burly man has lost them among the crowd, and they step out into the packed parking lot. Quickly, the two of them walks towards Rachel’s car, getting into it and peeling out of the parking lot as quickly as possible. No one pays them any attention, and no one was shouting for them out back – yet.

“I feel like I just committed a felony,” Quinn admits as Hobby Lobby disappears from Rachel’s rearview mirror.

“Serves them right,” Rachel mutters. “Guy can’t take an honest opinion of his work. Honestly, I don’t think they’d miss two champagne flutes out of a hundred. And besides, wouldn’t it be nice to have something to remember this day by?”

Quinn stares at Rachel for a few more seconds before bursting into laughter. Rachel joins in, and it’s a glorious feeling. She retrieves the champagne flutes and shoves them into the glove compartment.

“I agree,” Quinn says, but her voice catches when Rachel reaches over the console to hold her hand. “We…we should buy some drinks to fill it up with. On…on the way back home.”

Rachel nods, conceding with the idea. She takes the right turn to West Street, then back to Jackson Street. In a few minutes, they see McKinley looming ahead, and the air around them turns to somber. They drive past the school, and instead Rachel takes the dirt road leading towards the hill behind McKinley High.

“I wish we didn’t have to go back to school today,” Rachel admits as she parks her car under the foliage of the trees on top of the hell. Below them, McKinley High sprawls like a fallen titan. “It had been so…fun being with you, Quinn. Shopping and going to that art show.”

Quinn stares outside. The sun is beating down on the gravel without mercy, gold bleeding everywhere. Out there in the football field, she could hear the jocks practicing their drills and the Cheerios doing their routines. Coach Sylvester is yelling something through her bullhorn, although she cannot make out the words.

“…but I have to go back, because…because of everything and…a-and there’s Finn to come back to and—” Rachel sniffles, and it _wakes_ something in Quinn, and her hands are now traveling over the console, fumbling their way to Rachel’s face and shakily wiping the stray tear that escaped from the brunette’s brown eyes. Immediately, Rachel wipes her tears away, straightens herself on her seat and fixes her hair.

“You know, van Gogh believed that the color of happiness is yellow. He drank yellow paint because he thought if he did, he’d keep happiness inside him,” Rachel says after sometime. The first few students of McKinley are start to pour out of the doors, and Quinn knows they have a little time before Finn snatches Rachel away from her.

“That’s really sad,” she tells Rachel.

“It is,” Rachel sighs. “I guess…we were all sad, in a way. You and I and everyone else,” Rachel’s eyes flit everywhere, landing on everything except for Quinn’s. No matter how Quinn tries to search for Rachel’s brown irises, they always avoid her.

“Maybe it’s because out there in the vastness of space, stars are dying…a-and we don’t know it, but it’s already happening here, too. The world is ending and the universe is collapsing and everything is ending and…and we just don’t know it. Or in a way, we know it. We just don’t understand why we’re so sad but that’s just because we know, deep down, that the Universe is collapsing on itself and it is ending.”

The brunette’s words turn hollow but when Quinn turns to Rachel’s eyes there’s nothing but fullness in them – fullness and fire and anger and then some more. It sends something in Quinn that makes her shake.

“Does this mean we are ending, too?” the words fall out of her lips without her control and the fire in Rachel’s eyes simmer dangerously for a fleeting second.

A small laugh escapes the luscious lips belonging to the brunette. “No. We are different. We don’t count. Everything could end but not us, Quinn Fabray. Fuck Lemaître. Fuck Einstein. Fuck Hawking. Fuck physicists and their cosmic models, we don’t count because we were never part of the equation.”

Quinn feels Rachel cop her hand across the console. By now the sun has fallen almost behind the tall mountains on the horizon, and Rachel’s face is bathed in yellow light. The brunette looks ethereal, almost otherworldly, and Quinn’s heart rate picks up when Rachel runs a reverent hand across the side of her left cheek.

They’re so close, so close, so close.

“Sometimes…I feel like you are Yellow to me, Quinn. A yellow star. And stars do not bother with the affairs of men, you see. You and I are different. We are invincible, we are forever. More than anything, more than everything,” Rachel’s breath ghosts on her lips and Quinn takes that final step – she leans forward and she could taste champagne and Rachel’s cherry lip balm and there’s stardust and she momentarily forgets how to breathe because the Universe floods into her tongue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it, thank you so much for reading! How do you feel about this chapter? Is it a yay or a nay? We're a few chapters from the ending, and I hope this has been a chapter that satisfies you all, dear readers.
> 
> If you have anything to say -- commend or criticize, you can let me know through the comments section. Leave a kudos if you'd like, I appreciate all of it. Follow me on Twitter @artisturtle and I'll follow you back so we can be friends.
> 
> As per usual, stay safe beautiful people. Keep your distance, masks are a must. Peace and Light. xx


	29. After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T/W: Mentions of Rape, Mentions of Non-Consensual Sex, Drunk Sex and Drug Use
> 
> I know that I have put it on the original tags of the story from the get-go, but I feel like I have to reiterate them again here, as these subjects were more brought out and are directly mentioned in this chapter as compared to the previous chapters. I know, I should have put this in the story tags (especially the mentions of rape), and I am really sorry for not putting it out there earlier on in the story.

Hobby Lobby looms in the distance, and Quinn finds her own feet heavy. The first time she had been there, the shop had been holding an art showcase, so it was fairly packed with people. They just showed up there for the free drinks. The parking lot is fairly empty, the sky dark and gray – a stark contrast of the last time she’s been here with Rachel.

The rows and shelves are quiet. She runs to a few customers here and there, but it’s really a stark difference from the Hobby Lobby she and Rachel had visited months ago. She goes straight to the shelves of paint at the back of the shop, and she fills her cart with all the yellow paint she could find.

Half an hour later, Quinn marches to the check-out station to pay. The cashier gives her a weird look, but punches in her purchases anyway. A young man carts her purchases to her car and he helps her load it up. She drives away, stopping at McDonald’s to fetch herself a burger before heading to the mudhole.

It’s almost lunch time when she drives onto the familiar-looking rough road. The skies are a pewter color, with a few flecks of smoke-gray in the eastern horizon. The mudhole mirrors the sky, albeit wearing a darker shade of pewter gray.

Her car skids with a spray of pebbles across the water. Her actions are almost automatic: turn ignition off, unclasp seatbelt, get out of car. Her feet carry her aimlessly towards the back of her car, opens it and looks at the pails and gallons of yellow paint that almost spills out of her trunk.

There is no rationality in this action and Quinn knows she’ll have to deal with a lot of explaining to Santana should the Latina ever find out about what she’s done. She lugs up the containers to close to the water, picking the heavy plastic containers one at a time. She’s made about thirteen trips back and forth -- from her car to the water.

Her nose scrunches at the pungent smell of paint as she stands on the boulder looking down at the deep, murky waters of the mudhole. She used to hate the smell of paint, but she doesn’t mind it this time, as she stands on the boulder and she starts pouring the yellow paint into the water. It bleeds almost seamlessly into the dark-gray, the yellow disappearing into its dark depths, the large bright blobs of paint sinking into the water.

It reminds her so much of Rachel’s hair sinking into the darkness.

****

****“Quinn, what are you doing?”** **

She jolts in surprise, dropping the entire bucket of paint into the water with a loud splash. It spills everywhere, the yellow mixing in with the dark murky-green. It spreads like an illness, jaundice-yellow infesting the darkness of water.

She stares at Santana with hazel eyes wide like a deer’s eyes caught in the headlights.

“I…I thought I could send Rachel some happiness,” she supplies, her breath hitching uncontrollably. “I…uh…she believed that yellow is the color of happiness and sometimes Gogh used to drink yellow paint and I…I th-thought…I could send her something…beautiful and yel--”

Santana steps forward to grip her shoulder. She automatically stills the moment the dark-haired girl’s hands make contact with her body. She winces, waiting for Santana to say _something._

The thing is, Santana doesn’t say anything. Instead, she looks straight into Quinn’s eyes as though her own holds unshed tears and that she’s about to say something -- but then, the Latina marches to the stack of paint buckets, picks up one and marches to the spot next to Quinn and tosses the paint into the water.

They don’t speak until they’ve poured all of the paint into the water.

The wind blows across the quarry, sending small dust-devils milling about. The afternoon is sweltering, a bit unusual for autumn. It’s unusually quiet, too. There’s no sound of birds or the rustle of leaves. The soft wind that kept on blowing is silent. She carries another pair of gallons to the boulder, setting it next to its brothers.

The sun beats down on her shoulder, warm and full of life.

A black pick-up appears just behind the trees, and Quinn stands from spot on the boulder where she’s seated. The car slows down to a stop just next to the shack, and a familiar boy steps out.

“Puck?!”

Quinn runs towards Puck, and he envelopes her in a tight big hug. He twirls her around once before setting her back down on the ground. He’s smiling, laughing. Quinn takes note of the lighter shade of his eyes, the absence of his Mohawk, and the large buff of his shoulders.

“Where have you been? God, we kept trying to call you, why aren’t you answering your phone?”

Pucks shrugs. “Just here and there, Q-ball. Tying up a few knots, traveling and then some. This town sucks,” he lightly laughs out. “Sorry I didn’t get to tell you I was leaving. Stuff happened.”

She’s not exactly someone who knows a lot of people, but she knows Noah Puckerman.

“With you, stuff’s always happening, Puckerman.”

He chortles out a laugh, hoisting himself up the boulder and sitting next to Quinn. “Have you been here long?”

Quinn’s not sure if Puck meant to ask how long exactly she’s been in the mudhole, or if he’s meaning to ask if she’s been coming here for ages, but she just shrugs her shoulders and smiles at him.

“A bit,” is all she says. She’s not sure of what she meant by it, either. She likes to think that she means both things. Puck stays silent, and they watch the sky changing its colors as the day turns to night. He lights up a cigarette sticks it between his lips.

“You can’t stay away, can you?” Quinn says after some time. Puckerman just looks at her, and she’s reminded of a pair of eyes that has almost the same color as Puck’s. 

“But you can’t stay here, too. Either way, this place is just… too much,” she finishes, shoving her hands into her pockets with such viciousness that maybe she must have torn a stitch or two.

Puck doesn’t say anything. There’s nothing left to say, really.

There’s a slight drizzle falling over the gravestones. Quinn stares at the headstone bearing Rachel’s name. The flowers are fresh -- someone must have come the day before or earlier during the day, probably an old friend or a distant relative. Rachel’s parents almost always leaves flowers on Monday afternoon. Quinn had spent many days by Rachel’s grave enough to know who sends Rachel flowers on a constant basis.

Quinn sets down the daisies she had brought for the girl. Crossing her legs, she squats in front of the granite block. She fishes out her phone from her pocket, scrolls down her phone before finding the particular song.

The first notes of _Clair de Lune_ fills the quiet afternoon. Something falls on Quinn’s face -- a droplet of rain. Quinn closes her eyes, drowning herself in the music. She stays in her lotus position for a while, and Quinn feels the rain wash over her.

She’s jolted back to reality when her phone vibrates on her hip, indicating that there’s a text for her. She slides it open and there’s a text from Brittany, asking her if she’s going to Puck’s party on the weekend. There’s a similar text coming from Santana, except for the fair warning for those who would not show up, since Puck won’t be in Lima for a ‘very long time’ so everyone has to show. She texts an affirmation to Brittany, and she pockets back her phone to listen to the music again.

When the song repeats for the eleventh time with a cramp already snaking on her left leg, Quinn rises to her feet, limping her way out of the darkened cemetery, clutching on her rain-soaked coat.

Puck’s party is surprisingly mellow, even though it had more people than usual. Sure, it still had at least all of McKinley’s entire population, but it’s not as raucous like the ones he usually used to throw. A lot of kids are just hanging around, drinking and getting high. Some of the guys aren’t from Lima at all, just college guys and girls trying to find their niches.

Santana makes small talk with Puck while Brittany gets them drinks from the yard. Quinn turns around, scanning the crowd for a lumbering teen, wanting not to get into another fight again. Santana materializes next to her, and her friend immediately understands why she’s so wary of the place.

“Finnept’s getting high in the basement,” Santana says as she makes a fist and knocking it lightly on her own temples. “So if you’re trying to avoid having a run-in with him, the coast is clear. Some of the college guys brought a good batch of greens, it’s time you have fun.”

“Why is Puck even friends with him again?” Quinn bemoans. “Are they even friends? He’s always around parties that Puck throws. It’s starting to annoy the shit out of me.”

Santana shrugs. “Probably because Finn’s got the money and Puck’s got the drugs,” she says. “Either way, they’re not exactly friends, Quinn. You wanna get high tonight? You can bum a smoke off me,” she offers Quinn a joint, but the blonde girl refuses.

“Ah…yes,” Santana rolls her eyes in annoyance. “Lame.”

“I…just feel different now,” Quinn tells her friend sincerely.

“Fine, fine…suit yourself,” Santana says with a moan. “I’m gonna go find Britt, see if she’s lost her way in the kitchen again. Don’t accept anything that Puck offers you,” Santana says at Quinn before walking inside the house.

She’s left in-between the dancing bodies smelling of sweat and booze, and it makes her dizzy, so she walks into the house. The living room is full of people dancing and the entire room is filled with trash and beer cans and soda cups.

She needs a drink before she could deal with all of this. She hates to be the only one sober.

So she walks into the kitchen. She sees Santana drinking from a bottle of Jack Daniels while Brittany is dancing with some McKinley kids, and she pries it off the Latina’s hands. She takes a swig out of it, and she grimaces at the burn it had left in her tongue. She hands it back to the Latina, who’s still scowling at her.

“Wow, glad to see you’ve come back from the dead,” Santana deadpans.

“I think I’m too sober for this shit,” she says.

Santana slaps her in the back. “God, whatever happened to that court order prohibiting you to drink,” she says. Quinn just rolls her eyes at her friend and takes the bottle from her friend’s hands again so she could take another swig.

“Like that’s stopped me or you before, Satan.”

They share the better half of the bottle as they sit on the kitchen counter, making lewd and nasty comments about the other girls Brittany is dancing with. Finally, Brittany had her fill of dancing and she sits between Santana and Quinn on the counter.

The three of them finish off the bottle. Once it’s empty, Santana jumps down from the counter with barely-there coordination and smiles at Brittany as she offers the blue-eyed blonde her hand. Brittany takes Santana’s hand like a proper lady and grins at Quinn.

Quinn couldn’t help but laugh at how stupid Santana looks. “Your face looks like ass,” she comments, but Santana just gives her a wide, gaping grin. “Santanaaaaa…” she drawls out in a drunken slur. “Are you high now?”

“Fuck yourself,” she says before Brittany swoops her in her arms and carries the Latina upstairs. Quinn sits on the counter for a while, watching as her friends disappear from her view, doing whatever the hell she doesn’t want to know they’re doing.

She’s still staring at the stairs when she feels a hand over her shoulder. “Yo,” she hears Puck say behind her shoulder. She just nods to acknowledge him, and he hoists himself up the counter. He hands Quinn a soda cup filled with a familiar-but-unfamiliar amber liquid.

“What the hell is this, Fuckerman?” she asks. She faintly recalls Santana saying something about Puck earlier in the night, but she can’t remember.

Puck gives her a cheeky grin. “Drink for the gods! Come on, chug! Chug, chug!”

Quinn swirls the amber liquid inside her cup, and she’s pretty sure that it’s laced with something. She doesn’t really trust Puckerman with all these things, and she’s never tried anything that’s coming from him because Santana had made her swear them off every time they go to a party with Puckerman in it since sophomore year.

“Just drink it, Quinn…” Puck says, and she can’t really refuse him and she sort of wants to try, so she does. She feels the tang and the sweetness of the drink, and there’s a bitter aftertaste of it, but it’s certainly better than the whiskey she’s shared with Santana earlier.

Quinn notices him looking at her and she raises an eyebrow at Puck. He’s caught halfway between lecherous and sincere that it kind of throws Quinn off-guard to see him like that. “The hell you’re looking at Piggerman?”

Puck smiles at her. “It’s not like I’m gonna get into your pants, Q-ball…” he grins lazily. “I mean, no offense. You’re hot and all that, but looking at you and thinking about you like that it’s like looking at my sister…it’s creep territory and all that. Besides, we’re bros. So calm your tits,” he holds his fisted hand out to Quinn.

She swats Puck’s fist away from her face. “You’re really offensive, you know that? Just don’t go staring at me like that, it’s fucking weird and creepy,” she says as she hoists herself down the counter. Her mind starts to reel back, and she feels like walking in muddy water. Her mind is swimming.

She grabs the counter and stares at Puck. “Shit, I think I had too many shots,” she says. There’s a tingly feeling in her fingers and in her chest. “What the fuck did you put in that drink, Piggerman?” she bemoans at her friend.

“Hell if I’d know. I just got this from one of them college guys down the deck,” Puck shrugs. “I don’t know about you girl, but I am riding planes on this shit,” he shakes the contents of his cup, spilling it all over Quinn’s shirt. She looks disgusted and he looks sincerely gutted that he’d spilled his drink all over her.

“I got some shirts upstairs, if you want,” he offers.

“Way to make a girl strip, you jackass,” Quinn punches him on the shoulder.

“Sorry,” Puck says sincerely. The carefree look on his face is now replaced with a concerned and worried face. “You know the way to my room, do you? Can you make it there without falling off the stairs?” he asks her with worry laced in his voice.

Quinn steels herself as her stomach lurches again. “Yeah, yeah…” she groans. “I think I can.”

“Okay,” Puck says. “I’m really, really sorry. Shit, Santana’s going to kill me.”

“It’s fine,” Quinn rolls her eyes. “If I have a terrible hang over tomorrow, I’m going to kill you, Puckerman. And don’t you dare blame me if I vomit on your bed tonight,” she says before sauntering out of the kitchen and into the chaotic living room.

She only makes it to four steps before falling flat on her face. Puck’s instantly picking her up, asking her a series of questions without even giving her time to answer: if she’s okay, if she’s broken some part of her, if she’s hurt herself.

She just looks at him stupidly, like she doesn’t know how to answer him, because really, how could she answer with a ‘no’ to all of his questions. He’d ask her to explain, he’d ask her to tell him anything, and she couldn’t explain to him why she feels so empty without Rachel.

So, Quinn just nods her head and tells him that she’s okay and she’s back again to those few weeks right after she had woken up, where everything just hurts and there’s no amount of measurement could actually account for the pain gaping in her heart.

Puck just looks at her with his brown eyes that reminds her so much of Rachel -- and he hoists her up his shoulders. She thinks that it’s not really that safe to be with him, because he’s high and drunk, but she doesn’t really have a choice anyway.

They progress through the stairway with such difficulty -- Puck taking one step at a time while Quinn braces the two of them by gripping the railings of the stairs. Puck grunts and heaves solidly for a couple of minutes as the two of them climb up.

Quinn doesn’t remember much, although she could remember Puck’s constant curses as he carries her all the way to the top landing. She also could remember how warm his neck seems, and how soft his bed feels but it smells like ass.

“Your bed smells like ass.”

“Says the drunk girl,” Puckerman chuckles as he lumbers out of the door. “Try not to fucking throw up on my sheets, Quinn. If you do, you’re washing it. My Ma will kill me if she finds out you puked on it.”

She mumbles incoherently at Puck, but his shadow disappears into the bright hallway, and her addled mind is demanding her attention. Something is throbbing on the side of her temples, and she wants it to go away. She finds that closing her eyes is making it a little bit easier, even though it’s not making the throbbing disappear.

The whole world turns quiet and Quinn welcomes the silence like she would welcome a friend. She embraces it and she lets herself drown in the quiet. She rolls her body over Puck’s bed, because it smells and she feels her cheeks on the carpet.

She wakes up to someone grunting and the incessant creaking of Puckerman’s bed. She’s not really sure who it was, but when she hears the string of dirty Spanish spouting off between moans and grunts, she immediately knows who it was.

“Get a fucking room, San…” she grits out, half-pissed at the fact that she’s woken up and half-disgusted that Santana and Brittany are getting down and dirty while she’s trying to nurse her drunken haze.

“Jesus! Shit,” Santana mutters angrily before crashing to the other side of the bed. “Fuck! Someone’s here…Britt? Britt, get your clothes on. Jesus, I thought Puck keeps his room closed!” she lets out another string of curses before getting up and flicking the nightlight on.

Quinn is still hidden underneath the blankets as the hallway light floods all over the room. She groans pitifully, but Santana and Brittany are too absorbed in looking for their clothes and bailing out of the room that they don’t notice her.

Santana turns the nightlight off and her friends leave the room in a flurry, with Santana muttering in low Spanish under her breath -- and from what Quinn had gathered, she’s cursing whoever it was in the room with them.

“Fucking twat-swatter,” Santana grits out as she slams the door behind her.

Quinn listens to the muffled bass under the floor. The party had just gotten louder, and she wishes to be with the others, but her mind is swimming in the alcohol and whatever it was that Puck had put inside the drink. She rolls over until she gets under the bed.

The sound is much muffled here compared to the outside, so she stays there. There’s still a faint throbbing in her temples, but at least it feels a bit better than earlier. She curls up with Puck’s blanket, which smells so much better than the sheets and she falls back into a deep, dark pit.

There’s a loud crash that wakes her up again. At first, she curses Santana because she thinks it’s the two of them again. She hears someone lie on the bed, and the bed springs creak. A cloud of dust falls over her.

“No…I…” a girl says weakly. She recognizes the voice but she just couldn’t remember who it was exactly. With her alcohol-infused mind, she’s not able to put her finger on it. Then it clicks -- the voice belongs to Kitty Wilde.

If she wasn’t so drunk, she could have remembered to use this one event against Kitty, but Quinn coughs up the dust underneath Puckerman’s bed and she stays and listens to the whispering above the creaky, dilapidated bed.

“No…no, we can’t do this here…” Kitty says pleadingly to whoever she is with. It’s not lost on Quinn how drunk Kitty sounds like. She’s slurring all her words like she’s eating them off. “We don’t…we don’t have protection, I’m…I’m not on the pill. Stop…stop…”

“Shhh…it’s going to be fine,” someone whispers at her. It’s husky and very familiar.

“No…we don’t have protection…”

There’s some sort of shuffling. A zipper is being opened. Shoes are falling off the bed and thudding onto the carpeted floor with a muffled sounds, rising above the bass. Quinn decides to crawl her way out of the bed, but when a shirt lands right in front of her, she stops crawling her way out of the room and decides to sit this one out. She’s still in the zone of hurtling her entrails into projectile.

“I got a condom…it’s okay,” the boy reassures her.

“Finn…please…”

Quinn feels her blood run cold. She forgets about Kitty, she forgets about Finn, she forgets about the party and she remembers everything -- she remembers Rachel, that goddamn party at Ricky Nelson’s house during Winter Break, **_**she remembers the exact moment**_** ** _ **how the match that was struck had**_** ** _ **started the fire at Karofsky’s house**_**.

She remembers now, the End of the Fucking Universe.

She remembers now, how Everything had started to End.

She remembers now, how a Heartbreak sounds like.

Her stomach lurches and she finds herself spitting everything out. The acidic smell of whiskey mixed with the putrid smell of her lunch is mixing and suffocating her underneath the bed. It’s sickening to forget.

More than anything, it’s sickening to remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that's a bit of a heavy chapter. Thank you for reading through this one. There are only two remaining chapters in this story, and all I can say is that the next chapter is definitely longer than any other chapter in this story. Some of you might even find it a better idea to split the chapter into two, but for some reason, I scrapped the idea at the last minute and write you a long-ass chapter instead.
> 
> So, at this point I would like to ask you how you feel about this chapter, or how you feel about the story in general? I know there are minor details I might have overlooked (such as a mention of a minor detail like this and that), and I am really sorry for the inconsistencies -- I know I have no excuse for them.
> 
> I know I said earlier that I have two more chapters left, but maybe in the future there's a spin-off/one-shot that's in the same universe as this story and there's also another Faberry fanfic in the works, so I hope you it will appeal to you as this one did. 
> 
> Also, I might post a teaser chapter in here (as a sort of a thank you and parting gift) before I go in a probably two-month hiatus before publishing again. Of course, there'll be some one shots here and there but a multi-chapter fanfic is still far beyond the horizon at this point.
> 
> Alright, I'll shut up now. I've been taking so much of your time. Stay beautiful, people. Keep your distance, keep safe. A mask is a must. Peace and Light. xx


	30. Before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T/W: Rape, Violence, Suicide, Drunk Sex, Drowning, Arson
> 
> This is a bit longer than most. We are delving now in the darker themes of this story. I don't have a beta so all the mistakes here are mine. I hope you enjoy this chapter.
> 
> UPDATE, 09/10/2020:  
> Sorry, I forgot to mention in the original warnings that there's a bit of porn with a plot in this chapter.

Just as quickly as the kiss had started, it abruptly ends.

The world around Quinn goes quiet after a supernova explosion. She bites her lips, refraining to lick and taste Rachel on her tongue. She leans back, watching Rachel -- flushed and blushing.

“I…I shouldn’t have done that,” Quinn mutters. “I’m so--”

A hand gently cups Quinn’s cheek. It’s so soft and so gentle that Quinn feels like she could bleed from the touch. “Say nothing, Quinn. Say nothing,” Rachel whispers, her voice cracking, her voice bursting at the seams, breaking like a thousand light rays of the setting sun.

The quarry is getting smaller, and the water is rising. Quinn thinks that Rachel might be right -- but then again, it might be just the darkening twilight playing tricks on their eyes. She can’t tell for sure.

They’re sitting on the wooden deck of the shack, passing a bottle of vodka back and forth as they stare into the mudhole. They stare and stare at it for ages, and Quinn is certain that the mudhole has grown almost twice as big as it used to be.

“The mudhole looks bigger than it used to be,” she tells Rachel. “I think you’re right. The water is rising.”

“It is,” Rachel whispers. She falls quiet, and so does the world around them. “Quinn, what if this is the Center of the Universe? I mean, not the metaphorical center, but the actual and literal center of it? Like, where it started and where it will end?”

Quinn smiles as she sidles closer to the brunette, taking Rachel’s hand. “Well then, I am glad to be in the Center of the Universe with you.”

Rachel smiles, but she takes her hand away from Quinn’s gentle grip. A tear rolls down her cheeks, and the brunette haphazardly wipes it with the back of her hand. Quinn lifts herself to her feet, crawling the remaining distance between them.

“Hey, is…is everything okay?” Quinn asks, her voice full of all the gentleness and concern she could ever muster. Her shoulders slump when Rachel shakes her head. “Do you at least want to talk about it?” she asks Rachel, and Rachel shakes her head for the second time.

A burst of bitter laughter falls out of Rachel’s mouth, and Quinn itches to ask her what’s wrong, but she knows Rachel doesn’t want to talk about what’s wrong, so she lets it go and she just lets it be.

The brunette wipes another stray tear. “What if you never knew me, Quinn?”

Quinn just awkwardly sits there -- her hands floppier than usual, her fingers curling and uncurling awkwardly. “Rachel…I-I don’t understand…”

Rachel turns her entire body so she fully faces Quinn. “What if you never knew me at all, Quinn? I mean, you know the girl who took you to Center of the Universe and the girl you took to places. What if that girl was never real, and instead of having a starry-eyed girl, there’s just a selfish, cold-hearted and self-centered bitch?”

There’s a beat, and Quinn keeps her silence as she watches Rachel struggle with her next words.

“What if this girl,” she motions to herself, her eyes full of bitter tears. A guttural sound tears from her throat -- it is hurting and painful. Fresh tears roll on her cheeks, falling into tiny droplets trying to find purchase between the wood grains.

“Quinn, what if this girl was never real?”

Santana slides her food tray on the linoleum tabletop as she slips into the bench next to Quinn. “Karofsky’s having a party this Friday and Puck’s bringing in the booze,” the Latina says as she loudly chomps on celery. “I’ll pick you up sometime around seven, is that cool?”

Quinn stares at her lunch for a moment. Her phone vibrates in her pocket, and she opens it first. It’s a text from Rachel, and she quickly exits the tab on her phone before Santana could get nosy and grope her ugly paws on her damn business. It’s just the three of them having lunch, and there’s no telling about what the great Santana Lopez could do to her if it’s just the three of them together.

Quinn wonders momentarily where the boys are, but then Santana is snapping her fingers at her so she pays attention to the Latina.

“I’ll check if I can,” she says, hastily pocketing the phone. She doesn’t really want to go there, considering that it’s probably going to end up bad for her, given that it’s Karofsky’s party, but Santana is looking at her with pleading eyes.

“Come on, Quinn. You haven’t gone out in ages with us and I kind of miss having my two blondes together,” Santana says.

“I said I’ll think about it,” Quinn mutters, her tone clipped.

Santana gives her a murderous look, and Quinn tries hard to ignore it. However, the Latina seems to have other plans because she doesn’t let Quinn live it down. She discards her celery and turns to Brittany. “Uh, Britt…can you get me some of those tots because I’m suddenly craving for them right now?”

Brittany pushes herself up from the bench, kisses Santana’s temple, and skips happily towards the lunch counter. Quinn swallows her food hard because she knows Santana is definitely going to do something drastic now that it’s just the two of them. Santana turns to her, her dark-brown eyes glaring.

“Okay, now that Britt is out of our hair for the moment and the boys are out because I told them it’s a girls-only lunch for today, I have something I wanted to bring up,” Santana says, her voice cold and her tone clipped as well. “Better tell me what’s up with you before Brittany comes back. Now, talk.”

Quinn musters an innocent smile. “What’s up with me? I don’t get it.”

“I don’t know. Don’t tell me no nothing, but I do know you’ve been skipping school,” Santana says. “The other week Britt and I came to look for you while you had study hall and you guess what? You weren’t in study hall. And I know you don’t go to places you ain’t supposed to be because you’re not a bad student either so don’t even think about lying to me.”

Quinn pushes her food around, wishing that Brittany is back already. What is taking Brittany so long to get those goddamn tots?

“Oh,” Quinn hums. She hides the ugly feeling that crawls in the pit of her stomach by swallowing a large gulp of her orange juice. She goes in for the lie. Well, it’s not technically a lie, given that she’s been with Rachel at that time. It’s only a half-truth at the most.

“You’re not going to tell me anything?” Santana asks incredulously. “Since when have you been keeping secrets from me, Fabray?”

“I was out-campus for the project in Mr. Roth’s class. Are you happy now?” she grits out at Santana. “How’s your project with Britt going anyway?”

“It’s coming together,” it’s Brittany that answers for Santana as she comes up behind them. She sets down the tots in front of the brunette before sitting on the bench herself. Santana beams up at the sight of the tots. “Here you go, San. The lunch lady only had spicy.”

“They didn’t have the double cheese?” Santana asks, her voice almost dejected. She gives a sharp look at Quinn before turning back to Brittany. “I thought they had the double cheese.”

Brittany shrugs. “I think they ran out of it.”

Quinn finds it an opportunity to steer the conversation away from her, so she asks Brittany about their English project even if it’s the last thing that she wants to talk about. Brittany talks about their project animatedly, and Quinn internally lets out a sigh of relief when Santana half-heartedly drops the subject.

It’s Friday afternoon and she’s making her way out of the school when she walks into Finn and Rachel arguing by Rachel’s locker. She tries her best to be invisible and unseen, training her eyes on her sneakers even when it _kills her to take a look and eavesdrop._

As she turns down the hall, she sees Rachel take a knee right into Finn’s crotch. Finn doubles over, catching himself by the lockers and then he comes up laughing, but Rachel is looking at him with thunder in her eyes.

“Fuck!” he groans in pain. “God, I guess I deserved that…so we good now? Will you come with me to the party?” Finn heaves himself up, and Quinn certainly doesn’t miss the way fire flickers behind Rachel’s eyes as she nods before falling into Finn’s arms. Quinn flees to her car before she could see red.

She’s turning the car ignition on when she hears the passenger door to her car open and someone tosses their bag into the backseat of her car. In her surprise, she accidentally drops the key fob.

“ ** **Jesus fucking Christ!**** ” Quinn exclaims. “Are you going to give me a heart attack?” the blonde girl mutters lowly as she bends over her seat to feel for the key fob on the car floor.

Rachel just snorts and seats herself. “Quit being ridiculous, Quinn. I was hoping you could drive me around town.”

Quinn manages to pick the fob up and start the car engine again. “Don’t you have Finn to do that for you?” she asks sullenly. She knows it’s a low blow, but she’s dying to see if Rachel would even bite the bullet.

Rachel looks at her, clearly not buying it. “Really? Quinn…just come on…”

Quinn rolls her eyes. “Fine. Where do you want to go?”

She watches as Rachel as the brunette makes a beeline towards the stack of lighter fluids and ethanol. Quinn doesn’t say a word when Rachel mindlessly chucks the containers into their cart. The brunette ends up buying at least half of the lighter fluids on display. When she’s done, Rachel grips the cart handle and wheels it to the check-out section.

“That’ll be fifty-six and twenty-five dollars, are you paying in cash or debit?” the fat woman behind the register asks in a monotone voice. She pops a bubblegum loudly as if to emphasize the silence between them in the otherwise noisy line of cash registers, and it makes Quinn wince.

“Oh no, I have a credit card,” Rachel says before handing the credit card to the woman. For a moment, the woman gives them an incredulous look, as if she’s wondering why the hell two teenage girls would buy fifteen containers of lighter fluid.

Without a word, the woman takes the card and swipes it. Then, she shoves the containers into plastic bags and hands them to Rachel. “Come back to Home Depot for all you construction needs,” she says almost tiredly before moving on the the next customer.

Quinn helps in loading the fluid into the car. When they’re done, Rachel asks her to drive again to yet another hardware store to buy another batch of lighter fluid. It makes Quinn wonder, why the hell there’s so much lighter fluid needed, but she knows by now that she doesn’t need to ask Rachel if the brunette wants her to know something.

So, Quinn just drives her around and goes along with it.

They had to stop to three more other hardware stores and Quinn is pretty sure they have enough lighter fluid to send a rocket to space before they’re making their way through the familiarity of Rachel’s street.

Rachel’s parents are not yet around, and Quinn knows it is unnecessary but there is a certain rush to Rachel’s actions. Quinn watches as Rachel _literally fly_ out of her car and slam the door behind her. She had to run up the stairs to see what Rachel is up to.

“Quinn, don’t just stand there. Come help me put these things into boxes,” Rachel is tossing her things into paper boxes - memorabilia, papers, doodles, notes from Finn, sweaters from Finn, wilted flowers, the champagne flutes, their pictures… ** **everything.**** There is no system to her actions, ****there is only rush****.

Thirty-minutes later, Quinn is driving them to the quarry -- there’s enough lighter fluid to cause an explosion and wipe Lima away from the map. All of Rachel’s treasures stowed away in the trunk of her car. It’s only then, that Rachel seems to be calm enough.

When the car halts in front of the shack, the rush is gone. There is now method to Rachel’s actions. The brunette steps out of the car, opens the trunk and takes out the things that belonged to her.

She piles them a few meters away from the waterline of the mudhole. One by one, she chucks them off as Quinn watches helplessly from the side. When Rachel picks up her journal, Quinn’s legs finally decide to work and she holds Rachel’s hand to stop her from throwing it away.

“Rachel…Rachel…these are your things,” she’s kneeling beside Rachel and the brunette’s hands still for a moment. “Rachel…stop!”

Quinn shoves her hands into her armpits to keep herself warm, but then Rachel is taking them in her hand and they’re shivering together. “Look, Rachel…you-you can’t do this. You can’t throw this all away. You…you can look back through them one day and you’ll remember the stuff we did and the things we wanted to do and all of that. You can’t just get rid of it. What’s the point of getting rid of it, anyway?”

“What’s the point?” she whispers angrily at Quinn. “What’s the point of…of keeping them?”

Quinn doesn’t answer right away. She watches as Rachel takes something out of her pocket and she hands a match to Quinn. Her face goes white, but Rachel’s face is stone-cold as she shoves the match into Quinn’s hands.

“What? I can’t do that, Rachel!”

There are tears in Rachel’s eyes, but they don’t fall. “Please, just do it, Quinn. Please, I can’t do it so you have to. You have to. For me.”

Quinn bites the inside of her cheek so hard that she feels like she had drawn blood. She couldn’t hold herself from asking. “But Rachel…why?”

Rachel gazes into the water. “You don’t want to know why, Quinn.”

Quinn hesitates. She holds the match between her fingers, almost not ready to light it up. She almost asks Rachel again. She almost asks her ****why**** again. She almost presses the issue and tries to change Rachel’s mind.

But she doesn’t.

“Okay. I’ll do it, but I get to save the journal,” she tells Rachel instead.

Rachel’s eyes harden. “Okay. But I get to hide it.”

“Hey, that’s not fair!” Quinn’s brow furrows. “What if I can’t find it?”

“You will find it,” Rachel huffs, rolling her eyes as she bends over to pick the mauled journal. “God, Quinn. Please light it up already. Please please please…I love you more than anything.”

She doesn’t argue. She leaves it at that. Quinn knows it’s the best she can get from Rachel. So she lights the match.

And then she drops it on the pile.

“More than everything,” she whispers.

As they watch the fire die down, they pass a bottle of vodka between each other. Quinn stares at the flames, her mind getting numbed by the alcohol. Rachel is curled up beside her, shivering.

“Quinn,” she whispers. “Do you ever feel like you just can’t win?”

A low rumble lets out of her throat, the bitter laugh falling from her lips. Of course, Quinn knows what it feels like. She lives in Nowhere, Ohio. She doesn’t play sports. She’s not a cheerleader. Her mother’s an alcoholic nutcase and her sister is dead and her father is an asshole.

“Oh, stop that,” Rachel nudges her bicep with her chin, planting a soft kiss at the curve of her shoulders. “I can hear you thinking.”

Quinn shrivels against herself but then Rachel is stroking her hair and is whispering sweet nothings into her shirt and it makes Quinn feel tingly. When Rachel straightens from her seat, there’s a defeated look in her eyes and she looks like she’s going to cry anytime soon.

“Say, Quinn…what if you ditch Santana and I ditch Finn and you drive me to Karofsky’s tonight instead?” she asks, her voice small and hesitant.

“What?”

Rachel smiles, but it’s a smile that doesn’t reach her smile. Still, it’s a smile nonetheless. “Come to the party with me.”

Quinn nods. “Okay. But I have to text Santana first. And I have to go and change.”

By the time they’re already in Karofsky’s house, the party is already in full swing. There’s a bonfire in the back yard and people are heating marshmallows and hot dogs. Quinn is forced to park the car a few houses down because there’s no more parking space on the front of the house. She turns around, scanning the crowd for Santana and for Finn, but neither of the two seems to have turned up yet.

Rachel holds her hand as they weave their way across the crown. The living room is hard to navigate, the kitchen is even harder. Rachel grabs them both a bottle of wine coolers before moving on to the backyard.

There are lawn chairs all around, but most of them are occupied already. Rachel spots a lawn chair at the far back, close to the bonfire. It’s dimly-lit except for the light coming from the fire and close to the pool where teenagers are swimming and drinking. Rachel pats the lawn chair and the two of them curl against each other. Somehow, they had managed to fit in the scrawny furniture.

They stay like that for an hour or so, sipping on wine coolers. The wine coolers shouldn’t be enough to get her drunk, but they have been drinking even before they had arrived at the party, and Quinn could feel the alcohol seep into her bloodstream and work its effect into her mind.

She watches Rachel lumber back to the kitchen, presumably to get more alcohol when she notices Santana making her way towards her. The Latina picks her way through the crowd, until her eyes find purchase on Quinn's.

"Thought you're with Berry?" she says, rather disdainfully. "Okay, don't answer that. Since when you and Berry are close? You barely talk," she mutters, picking a lawn chair that's recently vacated and sitting next to Quinn.

"You should take caution with her, you know? You know she's just going to fuck you over in the end, right?" Santana says, crossing her legs and putting down her cup. Quinn wonders if Santana had been drinking.

"You don't know that. You know what, San? That’s just bullshit," Quinn says, sounding defensive at the Latina's accusation."You don't know that," Quinn puffs up her chest as she repeats it, sounding defensive.

"Oh, I know that exactly, Quinn. How many times have you skipped school for her, bled yourself dry for her while she’s out there, hanging off Hudson like a fucking leech?” Santana rolls her eyes at Quinn. “Do you even know what they call Rachel nowadays? Do you have any idea what kind of person Rachel is?”

Quinn knows.

**_**Rachel is the girl with stars in her eyes. Rachel is the Sun. Rachel is anything and everything and the entirety of a Universe all rolled into one.** _ **

But Quinn doesn’t say anything.

“You know, ever since I got to ask you about that time you skipped study hall, I had a hunch about what you’re up to. I wanted to see it for myself, prove myself wrong. I wanted to be wrong about it, so bad but I kept on asking around. And don’t tell me no nothing, because I see and hear things," Santana clucks as she takes a swig of her drink. "And don’t think for one second I don’t notice you myself -- you being this stupid, bumbling, idiotic fool falling head over heels for that self-centered, two-cent crack whore, narcissistic bi--”

Quinn feels the momentary sting of her hand, but she doesn’t remember slapping Santana. When she looks up, she sees a hundred emotions rushing through Santana’s eyes in the span of a few seconds, the most evident of them are shock, pain and disappointment, anger, and then there’s rage -- pure and flaming rage. Santana raises her hand, and Quinn is surprised not to see the slap coming.

She cradles her stinging cheek, unable to move or do anything as Santana heaves right in front of her. After a few tense moments, the Latina straightens her back, her eyes a cold mask of anger and she has schooled her features into an emotionless face.

“When Rachel breaks your heart and fucks you over…don't ever dare to fucking crawl back to us. You fucking brought this upon yourself,” the Latina snarls before turning on her heel and walking away from Quinn.

She’s too drunk to even come after Santana, so she just falls back into her lawn chair and sighs. Her head throbs incessantly, the entire world around her spins and she feels like she could fall any second now if not for the tan arms wrapping around her shoulders.

“You’re drunk,” Rachel says sweetly. She deposits Quinn into the lawn chair and cuddles next to her. She hands Quinn a cup of beer and the two of them sip on their cups while just watching the people milling around the pool.

Santana has stayed on the other side of the yard, close to the pool where Brittany is swimming with some of her friends. Sam is talking to some jocks in the corner, and Puckerman is nowhere to be found. He’s probably spiking the punch or doing something equally stupid.

“Have you seen Finn?” Quinn finally asks. She doesn’t want to be anywhere near him or any of the jocks. Besides, she wants to see for herself if Santana’s telling an ounce of truth in her words.

A small smile creeps over Rachel’s face. “He’s in the basement, getting high with the football team from McKinley. Puck brought us a nice batch of greens. He’s not going to bother us for a long time, Quinn.”

Rachel’s breath ghosts at the curve of her neck, and Quinn momentarily forgets her thoughts. The brunette giggles against her skin, and it makes the goosebumps appear and the hot air from Rachel’s mouth tickles.

“Tell me about your favorite day with me, Quinn.”

“Huh?” Quinn mutters. “What day?”

Rachel puts a little bit of distance between them so she could look at Quinn in the eyes. “Your favorite day. With me. Something we’ve done before. Come on, I’m bored,” she says in a whining tone, but Quinn is so drunk and she can’t focus well with Rachel’s legs entwined around _hers._

So, Quinn blinks stupidly at the brunette.

“Ugh, fine!” Rachel bemoans. “I’ll go first. My favorite was when you showed me the cows. I’ve never seen a cow, so you’ll always have the honor to claim that you were the one to show me what a cow is,” she tells the blonde.

Quinn furrows her brow. “You’re lying,” she tells Rachel as she flicks the brunette’s hair. “You’re lying. Your eyebrow is doing the…thing.”

“The thing?” Rachel asks coyly.

Quinn nods her head. “Yes, the thing.”

Rachel lets out a laugh, raising her hands in mock defeat. “Okay, okay! I’m lying,” she says. Then, she hooks one of her feet around Quinn’s hips and she pulls herself up so that she and Quinn are sitting face-to-face. “You’re right, I’m lying. My favorite day, my favorite day ever…is this one.”

And then, Quinn feels Rachel’s hand over her rabbit-heart and Rachel’s cherry-lips are on her own and the stars flood into her mouth again just like the very first time she ever kissed the brunette on that hill behind McKinley High.

It’s soft, hesitant and yielding.

Quinn doesn’t move, and Rachel doesn’t move either and none of them breathed for a while but then, Quinn leans herself just as Rachel pushes. One of them breathes out just as the other takes a breath in. And then they’re kissing again.

Suddenly, Quinn is rainwater and Rachel is summer day.

Suddenly, Rachel is bitter truth and sharp hurting and Quinn is honey, endlessly and unbearably sweet.

They ease together and snap into place. They glide, they fly, they fall. Quinn’s fingers are careful, gentle, hesitant and light. Quinn rests them at the back of her waist, barely touching but definitely ****there****.

Rachel’s hands frantically travel over Quinn’s ribs, resting against where her lungs and her heart collide. She presses there. Rachel pushes, Rachel pulls. She stretches and snaps back in place.

She’s Quinn and she’s Rachel. Quinn and Rachel -- it should have been how they would have been, ages ago.

They kiss for what feels like a century, an eon, an eternity.

But then, someone is whistling. And it’s not a nice one.

It’s sharp and it’s rising and it tears through Quinn’s eardrums and it makes Rachel pull away. She lets go of Rachel and when she looks up, she sees Finn and Kitty standing right in front of them.

Finn is grinning the ugliest grin in the world and there’s a glint of disgust in his eyes and it makes the sleeping sludge inside Quinn’s stomach bubble with froth. Kitty looks like she’s just wants the earth to swallow her whole.

“Jeez,” Finn snorts as he tips his nose into the air, as if he had just smelled something ridiculous. There is hatred and despise dripping from his voice as he looks down on Quinn. “Quinn Fabfreak? Seriously Rachel, who won’t you fuck?”

Quinn watches as Rachel’s eyes flit from Finn to Kitty in five seconds and then back again. Rachel’s brown eyes finally decide to settle on Kitty and the brunette chooses to ignore the tall jock in front of her.

There is anger in Rachel’s eyes as she stares hard down at Kitty. When Kitty starts to turn on her heels, Rachel stands from the chair and grabs Kitty’s arm, stopping the other blonde girl from leaving.

“Wait,” she almost spits out. “ _Stay_.”

Then, Finn grins, smirking momentarily at Quinn, before kissing Rachel -- ****hard****.

Quinn stands from her seat just as Rachel lets out a pathetic whimper. The action is so quick and abrupt that the lawn chair topples over with a crash and a lot of people turn their heads around to see what the ruckus is about.

In the corner of her eye, Quinn sees Santana stand in rapt attention, her dark eyes trained on their direction. By then, many have seen the exchange already and they are attracting attention.

There’s so much red in her vision and the black sludge that had awoken is now creeping on her throat so she turns around and kicks another lawn chair as she flees away from the backyard.

She doesn’t really hear Rachel yelling for her name, or Santana yelling for her name. She certainly doesn’t hear Santana either telling her to stop fucking around. She’s so invested on keeping a cap down the black sludge and stopping herself from exploding that she doesn’t notice Finn walking behind her and grabbing her arm as she’s making her way across Karofsky’s front yard.

“What the fuck are you doing with my girlfriend?” he bellows as he pulls Quinn by the arm, forcing her to turn around.

“Why don’t you ask Rachel?” Quinn grits out. “What do you think? You said it so yourself. Rachel is fu--”

She doesn’t finish her sentence because something hard connects with her jaw and her entire world ****rattles****. Her jaw almost feels like it had fallen apart from the impact and when she looks again at Finn, his fist bloody and she knows what a punch feels like. Finn is about to hurl another punch her way but then Puckerman appears out of nowhere, mauling Finn into the grass.

“Fuck you! Pick someone your own size, you little bitch!” Puck hurls a fist at Finn, but Finn is so much bigger than him and Puck barely hits the football jock. Puck uses legs and teeth and fists though, and he must have managed to put a hook or a kick in there because Finn’s left brow is busted and there’s blood all over his face.

“I’m going to fucking make you pay for hitting me!” Finn screams as he lunges at Puckerman, his hulking body too fast for Puck to even dodge. For a guy with a lumbering gait, Finn is fast.

Puck crumples to the ground, but he brings Finn with him and they wrestle on the dirt, bones crunching and blood spurting and flesh hitting flesh. By now a crowd had already formed around the two boys hurling fists at each other, with Quinn crawling between legs and trying to get back on her feet.

“Quinn! Quinn!” Rachel’s voice rises against the yelling and the screaming. She’s running towards them, eyes wild with fire and chest winded. “Stop! Quinn, just fucking stop!”

Quinn turns for a moment, and Rachel runs into her -- she crashes, she collides into the blonde girl. “Quinn, please…” the brunette begs brokenly, breathing hard against her chest. “Wait. Please, wait. Don’t leave, don’t leave. Please listen to me…please, please, please just listen to me.”

Rachel looks so lost and so broken and it hurts Quinn, but she is lost and broken, too. So, she pulls away from Rachel. “I’m tired. I want to go home,” she tells Rachel, gripping angrily at the lapels of the yellow coat Rachel is wearing. It’s the one she had picked out for her at Old Navy. She’s shakes her head as she pushes Rachel away, still trying to recollect where she had parked her car.

“Get back here, Freak! I’m not done with you yet!” Finn bellows from behind Rachel, seemingly intent to kill Quinn with his bare hands. Rachel tries to stand between him and Quinn, but he swats her face away and Rachel crumples to the side.

Rachel screams for Finn to stop, but who listens anyway?

Finn mauls Quinn into the ground at lightning speed, giving the blonde so little time to react. He wraps his large hands around her throat, squeezing so hard that Quinn could see stars even with her eyes closed.

The edges of her vision blurs into darkness, and Quinn wonders if this is what’s it like to asphyxiate. But then, she hears glass breaking and Finn’s grip around her throat loosens momentarily before the tall boy slumps next to her.

She watches with bleary eyes as Santana picks her up from the ground. Her hand is bleeding from where the bottle had broken. The Latina’s eyes is full of fiery rage, and once Quinn is up on her feet, she feels the pain before she realizes Santana has socked her in the jaw.

“I did not do it for you,” Santana mutters, before turning to Rachel and slapping her, too. There’s a poison and hatred in her voice for Rachel and her eyes are full of rage as she walks away from the brunette with a parting threat.

“Stay away,” Santana’s tone is deathly cold.

Quinn suddenly sees red. The sludge is clawing away at her throat, wanting to be let out. It had been caged for so long. She jumps at Santana, clawing her way at the girl’s arm. “You stay away!” she screeches. “And stop bringing Rachel into this, she hasn’t done anything to you!”

Santana recoils, bringing her hand behind her to gain momentum and then slapping the living daylights out of Quinn. “I fucking saved your life, Fabray! You better be thankful when you wake the fuck up in the morning.”

Quinn reels back momentarily, the world spinning around her. Santana may be small, but the girl could slap real hard. She recovers quick enough to glare at the Latina. “Oh please,” she grits out once her vision stops spinning. “I have never, ever asked you for your fucking he--”

****“FIRE!”** **

Someone yells from inside the house and all of them turn to the billowing smoke coming from the back of Karofsky’s house. In a matter of seconds, Santana’s hateful eyes turn to one laced with worry as she drops the broken bottle on the ground.

“Fuck, Britt’s inside,” she hurriedly speaks to no one in particular. She turns to Quinn, grabbing her by the shirt collar, her dark-brown eyes holding the same intensity as the fire catching in the back of Karofsky’s house.

“Fucking pull Puckerman up to his feet, we need to bail out of here. I don’t care if I hate you now, but I am getting us out of here. Let me get Britt first. And fucking wait for me in the car.”

Quinn watches with bleary eyes as Santana weaves her way through the crowd of people pouring out of the house, trying to run for their lives. Someone falls on the stairs, and there’s an unmistakable crunch of bone breaking.

Suddenly, Quinn feels a hand tug at her arm and when she turns around, she sees Rachel with tears running down her face, washing away the mascara she’s wearing. She turns her nose derisively, and she yanks her arm away from Rachel’s grip.

“I have to get Puck to safety,” Quinn declares and she starts to walk away from the brunette. “Go home, Rachel. Santana will be here soon and I really don’t want to do anything with you anymore. You know what? She’s right. You just like fucking me over.”

Rachel huffs. The anger is irrational, but it’s anger nonetheless. “Of course, it’s always Santana isn’t it? Where is she now? Don’t you see, Quinn? It doesn’t matter. Nothing ever else matters because it’s just the two of us. It’s just us who matter.”

The sludge is back with a vengeance and Quinn tries hard to turn away, tries to focus not on the anger bubbling but on to _something else._

“ ** _ **I’m so sick, Rachel**_**. I’m so sick of you,” she spits out at Rachel, deliberately gritting each syllable one by one. “I’m sick of you! You know what matters? What Santana said. What they all said. You’re just fucking me over and I’m sick of being screwed over by you, Rachel. Every fucking time. I’m sick and tired of you and all of your shit.”

“My shit?” Rachel screeches. “Of course, I have shit, Quinn! You know why? Because Finn fucking ra--”

Quinn watches with disdain as Rachel stumble and fumble over her words. “He fucking what, Rachel?” Quinn tries to laugh, and she rubs her face with the heel of her hand so as to shake the alcohol away from her head.

When the brunette stops speaking mid-sentence, Quinn just **_**snaps**_** _._ Rachel doesn’t even think she is worth a proper, complete and coherent explanation. When Rachel tries to take her hand again, she slaps it away.

“Don’t even think about it, Rachel! Stay away from me!” she’s shaking so hard but Rachel is undeterred and she takes Quinn’s hand. There’s defeat and desperation in Quinn’s voice when she speaks again. “What are you not telling me? What are you trying to hide from me this time?”

Rachel wordlessly guides her to Finn’s car and she fiddles with the car door for a moment before it pries open. She opens the passenger door and literally pushes Quinn inside. The house is already in flames, and many people who have passed them are either injured or staggering away from the burning house.

“The cops will be here anytime soon, Quinn. We have to go,” Rachel says as she hotwires the car and its engines spring to life. “We don’t have much time,” Rachel tells her with a shaky voice.

It’s then that Quinn chances to look at the girl in front of her **_**for the first time**_** since Finn walked in on them. Rachel’s eyes are either full of fire or devoid of it. There’s a calm determination that she had only seen before -- when they burned Rachel’s things in the quarry.

As Rachel skids pulls away from the driveway, she watches Santana frantically turning around seemingly searching for something, one of her hand holding Brittany’s and the other hand grabbing Sam by the shirt. Sam is holding Puck up, the boy’s face all broken and battered.

Rachel doesn’t give her time to call to her friends, instead, she’s speeding down the road and heading to the quarry. The fire devours the house they’re leaving behind, and she’s forced to watch all of it retreating into the the distance.

She’s confused. She’s worried. She’s angry. These are feelings that Quinn knows she’s dealing with. On top of that, she’s drunk too and the world spins around every damn time Rachel swerves or the car shakes and rattles a little when it hits a pothole or a bump on the road.

Rachel blares a song loudly in Finn’s car. She sings to _Don’t Rain on My Parade_ by Barbra Streisand. It’s almost even ironic, because the moment they hit the highway, the skies open up and starts to rain in torrents.

They make it to the quarry in no time -- or perhaps Quinn had fallen asleep sometime during the drive. Either way, Quinn opens her eyes and she realizes they’re in front of the shack. The rain, however, has not let up yet.

“Hey,” she hears Rachel whisper beside her, the brunette’s smile is small and her eyes hold a certain tiredness as if she had just been defeated at a battle. The fire is now gone. “You’ve been asleep for almost half an hour.”

Quinn nods off. “I was? Why didn’t you wake me?”

Rachel sighs. “You were beautiful. I couldn’t wake you up.”

Quinn stops herself. They’ve gone this road before, and she definitely knows where this road _fucking_ leads to.

“Rachel, look--”

“Quinn, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, so sorry,” Rachel breaks in front of her and the brunette just unravels in front of Quinn. “I’m so sorry, I couldn’t fix it all. I’m so sorry,” Rachel clutches fervently at Quinn’s clothing, as much as the small space has allowed her, and an unholy sob tears at Rachel’s throat.

There’s no words to say, really. So, Quinn peppers kisses over Rachel’s face before she kisses Rachel fully on the lips. It’s unlike the kiss they shared earlier that night. This time, it is fiery. There is rage, there is anguish.

Rachel kisses Quinn back. She kisses hard. When they come up for air, Rachel pushes a wayward lock of blonde hair behind Quinn’s ear. She smiles sadly, leaning her forehead against Quinn’s.

Quinn tastes salt on her tongue as she crashes her lips against Rachel’s again. There’s no rhythm to their dance, there’s no pattern to their acts, no method to their madness. Quinn’s hands travel from Rachel’s back to her waist to her hips to her arms to the nape of her neck and back again. Rachel’s hand scratches and grazes lightly at the fabric of her denim jeans.

Quinn sighs when she feels a warm palm copping her breasts over her bra. She cants her chest forward, willing Rachel to touch her in ways she had never been touched. Somehow, they had managed to end up in the back seat without squashing each other, and when they’re halfway settled in the back of the ugly, cramped car, Rachel pulls her and starts to kiss her again.

Blood roars in Quinn’s ears when she feels Rachel’s palm snake its way into the insides of her thighs. A cry lodges against the back of her throat when she feels Rachel nip at the spot where her earlobe connects with the tendons of her neck.

“Kiss me in the places he bruised,” she whispers brokenly at Quinn, the fresh tears rushing back into her eyes. “Make me forget where he touched me, Quinn.”

It doesn’t take Quinn to be told twice and she pulls Rachel into her. She feels the brunette shudder against her when she feels a little bit bolder and she trails feathery kisses down the curve of her collarbones.

Her hands are frantic, they’re broken stars and black holes sucking in and sucking in and sucking in but never giving back. Rachel is gravity and Quinn is falling into her. There’s beauty in their mess and their madness, and Quinn doesn’t **_**just see Rachel**_** _._ She sees an entire universe open up before her, and the universe starts with her eyes tightly shut.

She doesn’t know where her sighs and her moans start and Rachel’s begin. All she knows is that they’re colliding, crashing, fusing and falling into each other. One draws the other, like the way one end of the one-dimensional string attaches to the other and when Rachel unclasps the hook of her bra, Quinn knows **_**there is no going back.**_**

She reaches up to free Rachel from her tight clothes, and the brunette above her lets out an audible sigh at the touch of her palm on the brunette’s stomach. Rachel shivers when Quinn’s wayward hand unclasps the button of Rachel’s denim jeans. The hand gets braver and braver with every passing minute, with every ragged breath. Now, Quinn risks going below the elastic band of Rachel’s underwear, and the blonde girl revels in the soft mewl Rachel lets out when the hot skin of her palm touches Rachel’s burning skin.

They move not as one, and yet one of them catches the other should either one of them falls. When Quinn unravels, Rachel is there to put her back whole again. When Rachel’s legs give way, Quinn makes sure to hold her up against the car seat.

There’s heat, there’s ache, there’s pain, there’s glory and there’s **_**something else**_** Quinn is so scared to put a name on. Quinn’s hand travel further down south, and when she finds a galaxy opening up beneath her fingertips in-between Rachel’s legs, the world around them melts. She nips at the bud on Rachel’s chest and she uses tongue and teeth to draw out the softest, gentlest sighs to ever fall from Rachel’s mouth.

_There’s nothing but she and her -- Quinn and Rachel, Rachel and Quinn._

Rachel’s hands are making their own trail on Quinn’s skin, too -- shedding clothes and taking stock of the strange lands of skin it’s about to explore. Hands are roaming along the valleys and the dips of her stomach, the crevices of her arms and the curves and the trenches located at the inside of her thighs. Quinn shudders at Rachel’s touch as skilled hands take their time in exploring burning skin.

Quinn chances to open her eyes, a plea stuck in-between her teeth when Rachel achingly grazes her nails against the grit of her bare skin. Somehow, she doesn’t know where clothes ended and skin had started.

****At that exact moment, everything just feels irrelevant.** **

Rachel feels like the sea, her touches feel like lightning and thunder. Rachel feels like the rain falling down against their stolen car windshield. Rachel feels like the promised heaven and she’s a wave and a tranquil lake all of a sudden and Quinn is sputtering, sputtering as she gasps for oxygen just as Rachel’s fingertips have breached the tides locked between her legs.

It spurs Quinn on, as she could feel herself unraveling against the minute ridges of Rachel’s fingers. A cry escapes Quinn’s lips, divine and unearthly and yet -- so, so human and it feels as if Quinn’s lungs had just learned how to properly breathe for the very first time.

It comes without warning.

Rachel shudders involuntarily, as if an entire galaxy has collapsed on itself. She lets out an animalistic, primal growl that originates from the back of her throat, spilling out of her mouth and echoing against the velvet covers of the car. She keeps shaking, shuddering and Quinn clasps her hands tight across Rachel’s shoulders as she tries to let the girl down easily on the back seat.

Rachel voluntarily curls up against her and she lays a gentle kiss on the curve of Quinn’s collarbone. Quinn molds her body with the brunette, and she pours all of the love she has for Rachel in the kiss she plants on Rachel’s hair.

“Get some sleep,” she whispers gently to Rachel, her own eyes getting heavy. Rachel fits into her, snug and warm, and the rain outside and Rachel’s shallow breathing against her chest lulls her to sleep. She wraps the yellow coat around their bodies and they try to keep each other warm.

At that exact moment, Quinn Fabray now knows what’s it like to taste the entirety of the Universe. She now knows what’s it like to be made of gold. She now knows what’s it like to be anchored.

****She knows now what’s it like to flow.** **

When she opens her eyes again, it’s in the young hours of morning. The rain has stopped and Rachel is nowhere to be found. She rubs the sleep from her eyes, and something ticks at the back of her head. The world around her spins, but she gathers her own thoughts, fixes her clothes and she steps out of the car and into the muddy ground.

“Rachel…” she croaks out, but her voice is scratchy with sleep and the brunette is not even around to hear her. “Rachel…Rachel!” she calls for the brunette, making her way to the shack.

Rachel is not there.

“Rachel!” she calls out into the open quarry, her voice echoing and carried by the wind. There’s no trace of Rachel leaving the quarry, and if she left, she would have let Quinn know -- she would have let her _know._

Quinn rushes back to the car, just to try and see if Rachel had left a note. She flips the car lights on, because surely Rachel must have left **_**something**_** _._ It takes her five more minutes before she finally notices the flat rock sitting on the cup holder next to the gearshift.

She picks it up, and she reads Rachel’s scrawny handwriting on the rock. The Sharpie is messy, but she could clearly make out the words: **_**I am watery, I am ripple to ripple.**_**

Something clicks into Quinn, something akin to a Universe birthing a new star -- and she stares into the great expanse of the dark, black mudhole in front of her. Something sinks into the pit of her stomach, and she doesn’t really think about it, but she’s clutching the rock in her hand and she’s running into the water.

On the boulder, Quinn finds another rock.

**_**I flow, I flow, I flow, but where shall I pour my remains?** _ **

Quinn lunges into the water. She’s not sure if she had pocketed the rocks or she had dropped them, but it’s no longer in her hand as she struggles to walk through the water in her denim jeans.

The water is cold and it is rising.

It rises higher and higher. It reaches her ankles, her legs, her knees and the water is still rising. She’s clawing at the water, she rushing through the coldness, she’s trying to **_**fucking get to Rachel**_** _._

Then, she slips on a loose rock and she’s reeling forwards into the water as she loses her footing. The world spins around her. She splutters when she inhales an entire ocean into her lungs, and her throat burns at the abrasive, watery intrusion rushing in.

Her head hits something -- a rock maybe, or maybe she had reached the bottom of the mudhole…anything -- and her vision becomes blurred before the world around her is plunged into darkness.

**_**Still, the water is rising.** _ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, you have made it here. Thank you so much for taking the time to read through this story. It means the world to me that you stuck with this for so long. We are so, so close to the end of the story (I think one or two more chapters, I can't really tell.) This chapter had been hard to write, and harder to take in. I hope I did Rachel and Quinn and everyone else justice, but mostly Quinn and Rachel in this story. 
> 
> How do you feel about this chapter? Please let me know in the comments below.
> 
> As a final note, I hope you stay beautiful. 
> 
> In addition, I hope you keep safe. Peace and Light. xx


	31. After

She forgets she’s under Puckerman’s bed, so when she tries to get up on her feet, she hits her head on the bed frame. The world around her rattles, there’s a sting on her left temple where the steel had cut, and she could smell the coppery sting of blood before the world disappears from her eyes.

Kitty screams. Finn curses under his breath.

When she opens her eyes again, the voices are gone. She crawls out from under Puckerman’s bed, face scrunching at the smell of vomit in her mouth. When she rolls on her back, she could see Kitty’s feet dangling from the bed, skirt riding up her waist, and mascara streaks staining her bright-blue eyes.

Finn is no longer in the room.

When she sees Kitty’s haphazard state, she screams.

Puck shows up some seconds later, his eyes taking stock of the scene in front of him. His eyes are taking a predatory look, and though Quinn feels immensely cold, she tries to wrap a numbed hand around his bicep.

He stands there, taut like a bowstring, ready to be fired at any given time. His eyes are cold and hard, training themselves on the spot just above Kitty's head.

But, Puck doesn’t break. Instead, he pulls Kitty's legs and settles them on the bed before he drapes a throw blanket around the girl's body. When he moves towards Kitty, he's moving with such gentleness that Quinn feels like she's seeing Puck for the first time.

"Hey, it's me. It's Puck," he whispers softly, but Kitty is just crying and would not let him touch her. So, he looks at Quin imploringly.

"I'll call Tana so you stay with her," is all he says as he goes for a mad dash out of the room.

"What did he do to you?" Quinn suddenly asks. She knows what, she knows what he did -- but a part of her still hopes he did not do **_**it.**_**

****"Did he...did he…"** **

Quinn could not form the words, and Kitty shakes her head. She's left standing awkwardly between Kitty and the bed. Kitty laughs bitterly at Quinn, and it sets her on edge.

"He didn't," Kitty spits out harshly, so brokenly. "But he would have done it if he could. If he had the chance to. He's done it before and he got away with it. He'd do it all again."

Quinn feels her blood run cold. Kitty did not have to tell her **_**to whom**_** Finn did it before.

She bolts out of Puckerman's room. "I'm gonna fucking kill him," she grounds out to no one in particular, just as Puckerman and Santana steps into the threshold of Puck's room.

****"WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING, QUINN?"** **

Santana is screaming for her from the hallway, and Puck is making another mad dash towards her. He tugs on her arm.

"Stop! Stop, just stop! Where the fuck are you going?" Puck says as he pulls her close to his body just in case she wants to try and run away again.

"I'm gonna fucking kill him! I'm gonna fucking kill him!" Quinn screams angrily into Puckerman's chest.

Puck holds her by the shoulder, and he tells her to calm down. "We have to call the cops, okay? We have to do it right. I can't have you killing him. Come on, Santana can call the cops and we can look for Finn. Together."

Quinn agrees, albeit reluctantly. "Yeah, okay."

When the two of them step back to the living room, the party is still in full swing. Quinn combs through the crowds, looking for the lumbering teen with the awkward gait. Puck leaves her side, seemingly looking for Finn, too.

"Quinn!" Sam comes up behind her as she's making her way through the bunch of kids who made the backyard a makeshift dance floor. "Where have you been? You're bleeding!" he says as he spots the splotch of red on her temple.

He guides her to the kitchen, where the music is lower and there are fewer people milling about. Sam rummages through the drawers until he finally finds the first aid kit. He starts to clean up her wound and dress it, then he puts a closure strip on so it can't open again.

"Sam," Quinn says as she watches Sam replace the kit back into the drawer. The boy looks up at her.

"Do you ever feel like you couldn't win?" she asks. Sam looks at her with confused eyes, and when he's about to answer, Puck appears from the back door. His eyes looked tired, and he looked like he just ran a mile.

"He's gone," he says. “His car’s gone. No one saw him leaving, but he’s gone.”

Quinn doesn’t really feel her legs taking strides across the room. She barely hears Sam yelling for her, asking her where she’s going. She vaguely registers the pain shooting up her legs when she catches her knees on one of the end tables, it doesn’t matter -- none of it actually matters because **_**Finn is gone**_** _._

Once she’s clear out into the deck, she starts running. Santana’s Jeep is parked on the other side of the street, and she sends a thankful prayer because she has Santana’s car keys in her pockets. She jogs the remaining distance, Sam trailing behind her. Puck is trying to make his way through the throng as well, but Sam seems to be the faster one and who’s gaining distance between them.

She manages to rev the engine up and pull out of the sidewalk when a pale arm desperately clings to the passenger’s side of the Jeep. Sam’s face appears not a moment later, mouthing some words to her, probably urging her to stop, but Quinn is unrelenting and determined. She steps on the gas pedal and the smell of burning rubber fills the air inside the car.

Finally, Sam lets go and Quinn revs the car engine down the road, skid marks imprinting against the asphalt, as she makes her way towards Finn's house.

She skids to a halt in front of a foreboding, two-story townhouse with the brown trimming and the white paint and the caramel door. The lone light flickers on the porch, but other than that, it looks like the entire Hudson household is asleep. 

She stares angrily at the house looming in front of her, unmoving and dark and devoid of life. Her hands shake in anger, itching to scratch at something that is not there. Finn's car is nowhere to be seen. Deep down her, she knows Finn's no longer in town. In a bubbling, red rage, she steps on the gas pedal again and she flies across the highway, towards the only place she knows.

_Finn is fucking getting away with everything. He gets to walk away. He gets to walk away._

**_**Quinn, do you ever feel like you could never win?** _ **

The car drifts and skids to a halt in front of the shack. Quinn stares at the shack. It's mocking her, daring her to do something. So, she claws at the door, tearing through the wood bit by bit. She screams, she claws, she wrecks and she ruins.

Her eyes sting with the salt from her own tears. The dark sludge that resides in the pit of her stomach envelopes her, weaving through her every fiber, damning everything around her. Her snot mixes with her tears, the stars hidden behind thick clouds.

When she tears down the door, she spots the matchbox sitting idly by the fireplace. Conveniently, there’s only **_**one match left**_**. With great reverence, she picks up the phosphoric stick, staring at it. She could set the entire world in fire.

It’s a bit poetic, she’d end the world in fire when Rachel ended it with water.

She marches outside, cursing and damning the entire quarry. She stands, toe-to-toe with the shack. She beholds the decrepit shack for a few seconds with all the contempt she could muster, then she brings up the match, flicking her wrist.

****The match comes to life.** **

She steps closer to the shack, her eyes never leaving the burning match. The world around her trembles with every step she takes. She lays the match close to a rotten plank, and the wood instantly catches fire. Her hazel eyes travel up the wall the fire is starting to devour. The smoke billows around her, the heat from the flames licking her skin.

Still, Quinn stands close to the fire, so mesmerized -- so lost in her own world of flames.

She's so lost in the world raging inside her that she doesn't notice the dark-gray blur rushing towards her or the sputtering engine of the motorbike that’s now parked beside Santana’s Jeep. The dark blur rushes towards her, ramming against her. She folds over herself, falling into the ground.

Then, she feels it on her cheeks, the cool liquid falling from the skies, mocking her rage by dousing the fire asunder. The skies open themselves up as if a knife had been torn into its belly. The half-burnt shack stands in the middle of the quarry, the charred wood sending plumes of smoke high into the darkening sky. It looks like a black blemish in the pearl-white mountains.

She tastes blood on her mouth, and when she looks up, she sees Sam heaving in front of her. She blinks once, twice, and she sees lightning flash around her.

"Stop," he breathlessly tells her. "Quinn, come on...let's go home, okay?"

"I can't...I can't let him get away…" Quinn picks herself up, and Sam tackles her on the ground again. Quinn tastes grass in her mouth. "He...he…" there are no coherent sentences. She couldn't string them together. 

"Rachel…" she finally bemoans, and Sam looks at her with lost blue eyes.

"I know, Quinn. I know. C'mere," he gathers Quinn into his arms and he pulls her up. "Come on, Quinn. I’ll take you home.”

Quinn lies on the ground and she stays there. “I don’t want to go home," she lets out a bitter laugh, her eyes fixed to the darkness above them. Freezing rain soaks her to the skin and she shivers. "I killed her, Sam. I killed her. I killed her. I didn't listen. I knew something happened but I did not listen and I let her go. When I tried to make her come back, she was already gone. I killed her. I killed her. I knew something was wrong and I did not listen and I killed her."

****"I killed her too, Quinn."** **

Quinn lifts her eyes to Sam, the rain making it hard to see him through the dark. His blonde locks fall across his face, plastered and sticking against his cheek.

"I...I killed Rachel too," he says, a large sob falling out of his mouth. He lifts Quinn from the ground and he walks her to Santana's Jeep.

Under the shelter of the Jeep's carriage, Sam pulls out a blanket and he wraps it on Quinn's shoulder. They don't speak for a long time, just sitting under the shelter of Santana's Jeep, watching as fire in the shack completely sputters out and the rain floods into the mudhole.

"When the cops found Rachel, her coat pockets were full of rocks," Sam explains. "The rocks are written with names...names many of us had kept calling Rachel behind her back when Finn spread that rumor about what happened at Nelson's party."

"What happened at Nelson's party?" Quinn finds herself asking.

Sam shrugs. "No one really knows, Quinn. I went to the party, but I wasn't there when whatever had happened...you know, happened. But the names started when Finn told people he and Rachel did it sometime after the party and Rachel screamed rape afterward."

"What happens to Finn, then?" Quinn asks. "Will the police take him or does he get to just walk away free?"

"I don't know, Quinn. Maybe he doesn't get to walk away. Maybe the cops won't apprehend him," Sam says. "If Rachel's parents will press charges then the cops could probably start an investigation. If no one presses charges, Finn walks free."

Quinn's brow furrows. "I was a very shitty person to her," she finally says.

"So was I," Sam agrees. "So was all of us. But then again, so was Rachel. She was a shitty person, too."

There's nothing left to argue with. There's nothing left to agree with.

The sun shines harshly against her eyes, spilling from curtain sides. Her head throbs, and it's not in a good way. When she turns around, she realizes she's not in her room but Santana's.

"Feeling any deader?" Santana leans over her, a cool palm on her forehead. "God, your temperature hasn't gone down yet. I could fry eggs on your head by how hot you’re burning up."

"What time is it?" she asks, her eyes heavy and her voice thick with sleep.

"It's almost ten-thirty," Santana tells her. "You were soaked to the bone when Sam brought you back home. What the hell were you thinking, driving off like that? You were drunk. You could have totaled my car once you hit the highway," Santana says, her eyebrows knitted in worry. The unsaid words are glaringly clear to her.

**_**What were you thinking? You could’ve gotten into an accident. You could’ve hurt yourself.** _ **

“Judy called this morning, wondering where you turned up,” Santana seats herself on the chair behind the desk. “I told her you were sleeping off all the drugs you did last night and you were dry-humping Puckerman like a baby seal.”

Quinn groans. She knows Santana’s just bluffing, so she picks the bottle of water sitting on the bedside table and she hurls it at Santana’s general direction. The Latina just cackles when the plastic bottle stops a foot short from where the darker girl is sitting. She stands from her seat, picks up the bottle, and puts it on the bedside table.

“You should take some Advil and paracetamol. Britt’s gonna bring you breakfast in a bit,” Santana says as she walks towards the door. “We’ll just be downstairs. You just holler “Hot Bitch” if you ever need anything.”

Quinn doesn’t have the energy to roll her eyes at Santana, but she mumbles a soft ‘thank you’ to the Latina’s retreating back just as the girl steps out of her bedroom. Santana doesn’t seem like she had heard it. Sighing, she turns to the bedside and pops the two pills Santana has left for her. She washes it down with water, then she lays her head back into Santana’s pillows.

When she opens her eyes again, the room is inadvertently cooler and her body doesn’t feel like it’s on fire. The water is running in the bathroom, and some music is playing downstairs. She’s a bit disoriented at first, then she remembers that she’s in Santana’s room.

Santana appears at the doorway not long after, and she takes a few strides to reach the bedside. She gently places a hand on Quinn’s forehead. “You’re deliberately cooler,” she tells Quinn. Then, she pulls on her drawer and takes out a digital thermometer. “I’ll take your temperature for sure.”

“I don’t want you sticking that in my mouth,” Quinn weakly protests.

Santana grimaces. “I’m not gonna put this in your mouth, dumbass. Raise your arm a bit, I’m shoving this under your goddamn armpit,” she says and she puts the digital thermometer under Quinn’s left arm. “Wait until the beep,” she says.

“I know how to take my own temperature,” Quinn sullenly counters, but Santana just rolls her eyes at her. She watches as Santana pulls the chair closer to the bed. They stay silent for a while, waiting until the thermometer gives a beep.

Finally, Quinn musters enough courage to talk to Santana about the previous night. “Kitty...is she...”

Santana seems to straighten in rapt attention. “She doesn’t remember much,” Santana says. There’s a hint of disappointment in her voice. “She was probably so hammered last night, she wouldn’t remember about a thing.”

Quinn feels something sink inside her stomach. “And Finn? Nothing’s going to happen to him?” she asks, hoping to have a different answer from the one she had heard before.

The thermometer gives a beep. Santana stands to retrieve it from under her arm. “Your fever’s gone down.”

“What about Finn, Santana?” Quinn asks, a bit more forceful this time. “Nothing’s going to happen to him?”

Santana’s shoulders sag considerably. She steps away from the bed, looking out through the window and refusing to look at Quinn. “I don’t think so, Quinn. I mean, no one can do anything to prove what happened. Maybe her parents can press charges or the prosecutor may press charges based solely on evidence, but other than that, it’s a...long shot, I guess,” Santana says.

Quinn toys with the frayed edge of Santana’s blanket. “Sam says that Rachel wrote on rocks,” she whispers to Santana.

Santana visibly swallows. “She wrote the things people called her, all those horrible things. They found her with them when they got the body out. She put them everywhere she could -- her jeans and the pockets of her yellow coat. She put rocks everywhere and she walked into the water. She wrote all those horrible names on them and they all dragged her down.”

“I killed her,” Quinn says. She remembers all those times Rachel had _almost told her_ but she didn’t push. She remembers the time when Rachel had fumbled over her words and she **_**did not listen.**_**

Somehow, the pain last night is numbed by the alcohol. This time, there’s no alcohol to blur her mind and the pain hits her full-force. She bites the inside of her cheek to stop herself from crying, but it doesn’t work.

“I let her go. I should’ve held her longer. I should have told her she’s none of those things,” Quinn lets the hot tears fall. “I never gave her a chance to say it all. I barely even gave a second look. I could’ve made a difference, but I killed her.”

Santana’s eyes mist over. “I killed her, too.”

“You know,” Quinn pauses, her hazel eyes searching Santana’s. “Sam said that, too.”

“A lot of us killed Rachel, Quinn. In a way, all of us did,” Brittany says as she leans on the door frame of Santana’s bathroom. Her eyes are brimming with tears, seemingly mirroring Santana’s tearful eyes.

The blonde dancer sits next to Quinn on the bed, and she holds Quinn’s hand. Santana scoots over, sitting on the opposite side of Quinn so that Quinn is stuck between Santana and Brittany, and the Latina leans her head on Quinn’s shoulders.

The three of them hold each other quietly until Santana gets up from her spot and walks towards her dresser. She takes something out of her drawer and she holds it up for Quinn to take. It’s a rock, with the familiar scribbly handwriting written on it.

**_**Fear not, for you are home.** _ **

Quinn looks at Santana with a questioning gaze. The Latina shrugs. "It's one of Rachel's rocks. I found it on the beach when we were camping. I've always meant to give it to you."

Quinn looks at Santana. She murmurs a soft 'thanks' and then she turns her gaze to Brittany, who's just watching the exchange in silence. Brittany squeezes her hand in solidarity. 

Slowly, she stands from her bed and she takes a deep breath before taking her phone from the bedside table. She stands by the window, watching the trees shed their leaves as she palms the screen of her phone, hovering over the dial icon sitting next to a number that's named Fat Cop. It had been a joke between her and Santana months ago, and the name had stuck ever since.

The phone rings.  
  
 _"This is Inspector Marcus Stone, Lima Police Department. Leave your message after the beep."_

Quinn waits until the beep and she politely leaves a message, her free hand palming the rock as she speaks. Her heart feels like a rabbit on the run, pumping and terribly twitching. She clutches at the rock as if drawing the strength as she speaks to the officer's voicemail. She knows no one is listening on the other end, but it doesn't quell the nerves she's feeling.

"Officer, this is Quinn," she exhales. She tries to still herself as the world around her slightly spins. "I...I have something to tell you about Rachel Berry."

She holds her breath.

There's a long beep and Quinn knows the voicemail has ended. She lets the breath she's been holding out, drawing out the exhale. The world around her spins, making her reel back, but there's a pair of hands ready to catch her and Santana is on her side in seconds. Quinn lets a small smile. She clutches the rock on her palm one last time, then she gives it back to the Latina.

Santana gives her a questioning gaze. With shaky legs, she walks to the bed, Santana in tow. They resume their previous position and Quinn cuddles to Brittany's side. The other blonde smiles and squeezes her shoulders.

"I don't want to have that," she tells Santana. "It's yours now, you found it. Give it to someone else, maybe Kitty."

Santana gapes. "Why?"

Quinn looks at Santana, giving her a smile and she squeezes Brittany's hand in hers.

"I am no longer afraid."

**(#)**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you have it, my friends -- this marks the end of a wonderful journey. I am very thankful for the precious opportunity to bring this story to light, and I am very thankful for the people who have been with me throughout this journey. I appreciate all who left me a comment and a kudos. If you have enjoyed this, please spread the word!
> 
> For those who have grown close to this story, thank you so much for the wonderful bond you have formed with this story, and with me as well. For those who are in the process of healing, please continue to do so, every day. I am not going to tell you it's going to be easy, but you will heal. 
> 
> I am here, rooting for you. A lot of us are rooting for you. Despite what happened, you are no less of a person and you are still entitled to all the happiness the Universe could offer.
> 
> I hope that reading this has been a wonderful experience to you just as much as it had been a wonderful experience to write this and bring this story to life. While some of you may feel like this is a rushed chapter, and there might be loose ends and odds somehow, but maybe in the future, in another chapter or another entirely different fanfiction -- these odds and ends may be addressed. For now, we settle with this, because from the very start, this story has been about Quinn and her journey to healing. Stretching this would be stretching the narrative and it may harm the entire story.
> 
> But is this truly the end?
> 
> More importantly, does one's story ever end?
> 
> Until the next time, my friends. Stay safe. Go with Peace and Light.
> 
> With love,  
> \-- A.


End file.
